by Jade Alters
I might almost feel something for them, if they weren’t trying to drop us from the sky, and history. But they are. I uncurl my talons. This triggers a meteor shower of man-sized stone from the sky. Each embeds in the ground with a resonant thump. The pulp of the Lotus trapped beneath them jump out as a scarlet stain on the dull earth. This blasts holes in their formation, but the Lotus uphold it without fear. Still, the fire from their flanks rolls around the outer shell of corpses, leaving the living center untouched.
“If we give them an opening, they’ll develop a counter strategy!” Thise’s voice rings through our minds. Right on cue, a wave of bow gun bolts arcs up at us. I roll sideways away from their refined tips. Those same bolts stick in my comrades behind me. Frail human bodies rain down from our unit, right into the Lotus crowd. I don’t know what happens to them after that, but it still haunts my imagination.
“We have to get down there!” I realize, “Fill the gaps in their formation! Rip them apart from the inside!” A wave of consensus surges around me from my companions through the Soul of Fire. Against every self-preserving instinct, I turn my nose down and dive.
Air breaks around the bolts that rip into the sky on both sides of me. I tilt and bank on one wing or the other to evade the hurtling hunks of poisoned iron. The screeches and roars behind me send chills through my boiling blood. Each one marks the sink of a bolt into scales. Each one is followed by the plunge of a scaly body, which fizzles back to its human form. I tuck my wings in tight to zip down even faster. I spin into the natural curve of the air resistance around me. My heart withholds its beats until I close the distance between myself and the Lotus.
I flare my wings out from my shoulders. The shockwave of air knocks a few robed combatants back a step. This, coupled with the boulders we dropped into their ranks, creates an opening just big enough for a Dragon to land. I dig my heels into the clay to brace my strikes. In the back of my mind, I know just how much my survival depends on the guts of my team. If I’m the only one down here, I’ve got seconds before I’m skewered by bow gun bolts from every side. But I can’t focus on that now. Like everyone else, I’ve got to think like a unit. I sling my claws around at the nearest Lotus striker. Five finger-blades rip through her robe and her chest. Her hands hit the clay while red fountains pour out between them. I express ship her soul to the next plane with a scaly heel on the top of her head. A stomp reduces it to soup.
I spin into a wild storm of claws. Bodies fling out from a two-foot radius around me. They flail backward through a scarlet shower from within their own bodies. It creates a gap just big enough for the next circle of Lotus warriors out to take aim. About eight bow guns level their sights on my scaly chest and back. The void around me also happens to be just big enough for two more Dragons to thump down into the earth. They land with a vengeance, crushing bodies beneath them and swinging out at others. One of the Dragons reels backward, a bolt stuck through his collar that was meant for me. He falls flat on his back. He spews congealed globs of ruby life. It turns my stomach, but I can’t stop to comfort him. None of us can stop for anything, if we want to survive.
I leap from my spot for a brief flap through the air. I unleash a thick stream of flame from my throat on a few Lotus who have been knocked off-guard. They crumble beneath the intensity of it as it hits their faces and extremities. Just before I land, I catch a glimpse of the battle at large. Almost all the Dragons that once formed the perimeter now lie in a limp line of lifeless human forms. They’re pinned to the ground by heavy steel stakes. More than half of us who descended from above didn’t make it to the ground in Dragon form. There are far more Lotus fighters in the main fray than our own. They’re exterminating us.
No… I shake my draconic head. Smoke billows from within my jaw, from the furnace of raw fury inside me. The Academy hasn’t been my home for the better part of a year, but…they can’t win. They can’t drop it out of the sky. They can’t kill us all. The supernatural world is the only one I ever felt at home in. And it’s not just me. They can’t take it away. For what? Fear? I’ll show them something to fear. Or rather, someone will. I throw my head back to the sky. I unleash a bone-rattling roar. I don’t even mean for the burst of liquid flame that spews out in a fountain with the words.
“HOSTER!” I scream into the sunset over us. Lotus combatants scramble away from my fiery hail in the second delay it takes for him to appear. Mist collects as if from nowhere, into a floating azure torch at my side.
“This isn’t working,” Hoster says.
“No shit! I need you to rip open the Realms again. Like you did at the Truce Camp. Throw them in!” I order him. The outline of Hoster’s already loose frame quivers at the thought.
“It won’t work. The Lotus has a direct portal to the Silver Realm now, in Point Arena. If I open a rift to throw them in, they might be able to jump right back out,” Hoster objects. I’m about to tell him to shove his mights where the sun doesn’t shine when he adds, “Or worse. The Lotus could be waiting for me to open a rift, to send in reinforcements.”
“But…you’re some kind of Astral prodigy right? We need you! Do something!” the words erupt from my mouth before I can stop myself. If he doesn’t, we’re all dead. If we retreat now...the Academy won’t stay up on two Tethers. But Hoster shrinks back. Come to think of it, he just shrinks. His misty form dissolves into a minute river, which trickles down beneath the cracks in the earth. “Hoster!” I scream as he slinks away. The last of his light fades into the clay. It’s just us now. Just me, Thise and a handful of others.
I turn back around to a legion of Lotus warriors. Each of them yanks back the loading string of the bow guns. They slide railroad spike bolts onto their launcher tracks. They take their sickening time. They’ve won and they know it. Not just the battle for the Sierra Nevadas, either. The Lotus has bested us at every turn. One by one, they’ve extinguished the lights that hold up our world. They won’t need to dispatch the last anymore. Even if the Academy dangles by the stream of the final Tether, it’ll go full sideways. Everyone will be forced to evacuate, or fall right out of it. They’ll be forced out to where the Lotus is waiting, to finish them off. We’ll be long gone by then.
My shoulders sink with the exit of one last, long breath. My whole scaly form deflates in the glint of the setting sun. Then I suck in, hard. I reinflate my frame. I spread my wings and claws wide in the face of prodding bolts. I pretend to be brave. If only for a second, I can trick myself, it won’t be so bad. My last second. I won’t have a chance to feel the sting. I spit fire into the group as the first bolt shoops loose.
A spectral blue hand swirls out of the air to catch it. Another bolt fires. Another hand appears to protect me. The remainder of the Lotus forces opens fire, only for their entire onslaught to be stopped dead in the air. One arm after another froths out and grows into a torso, a face and eventually a full body. There are men, women and children. Each of the mysterious Astral bodies holds its own unique form, as distinct as living people. Heads and hands rise up from the ground. All around me, around the whole battlefield, the dead are raised. One of the last to appear is the faceless blue Astral we started with.
“Hoster…what is this?” I ask, dumbfounded. Bow gun bolts drop from phantom hands across the clay valley. The Astrals float between ranks of panicking Lotus warriors. Most of them don’t have a chance to draw their Black Crosses. Shimmering blue hands hold them down while bewildered Dragons torch them or even go straight for the chokehold.
“If I had to guess, I’d say my ancestors,” Hoster shrugs.
“If you had to guess?” I echo, arms hung loose in disbelief.
“Yeah… My grandma told me I have stronger ties to the Blue Plane than most Astrals,” Hoster tries to explain. “I just sort of screamed out for help. These guys answered.”
“You…they…” I grumble. It’s all a bit too much to piece together in the heat of a shifting battle. I settle on, “Thanks,” for now. I’ll try to wrap my brain around it later
. For now, we’ve got a tide to turn. “Think you could get in there and…” I prompt Hoster toward the remaining Lotus robes with my snout.
“Oh, sure,” he says, like I just asked him to hold the door. He zips forward into the chaos. I leap to the air, hovering low over the crowd in Hoster’s wake. Wherever he snatches someone, I rain fire.
With our new Astral allies, we just outsize the Lotus. Between the numbers and the surprise of it all, the advantage shifts sides. One robe at a time, we paint the valley red. When the setting sun kisses the distant mountain peaks, a hundred shimmering blue spirits rise and scatter to the sky. They leave below them a burgundy carpet over the land. Not a single Lotus member is left standing. If it weren’t so morbid, I would collapse right alongside them.
At the end of our rope, finally…a win.
Battle for the City
Cece,
San Francisco, Hidden Corner
I about-face as soon as my toes touch the curb. I march, heel-to-toe, back to the other side of the concrete alleyway. This is what…lap fifty-three? I’m starting to lose track. But it’s a helpful game to play, to distract myself. So long as I focus on my perfect steps and counting my laps, I don’t have to think about where I am. The very spot where Jason died. I don’t have to think about why I’m here. To serve as the last wall between the Lotus and the end of the supernatural world. If they drop the Academy…well, it’s no secret. We’re all fucked.
In my pocket, I rub my thumb over a tiny shard of corrupted matter. Whatever that…thing was Heren used on Bryant crystalized what was left of him. The piece I caught. It fits into the pattern of scar tissue etched on my flesh perfectly. Squeezing it has become a habit. Running my thumb over its glassy, smooth surface has become the only thing that can really soothe me in times of turbulent stress.
“Missed a step.” I jump at the rumble of Dorian’s voice. My shard of Bryant slips from my nervous hands, into the deepest crevices of my pocket.
“Wha-what? Ugh,” I grunt. I spin around to frown at him. “Did you have to do that?”
“What’s wrong, lost count?” Dorian teases me again. How well he mocks my genuine disappointment forces a grin across my lips. “Sorry to interrupt. I just thought you could use a real distraction. Those creases in your forehead tell me this one isn’t working anymore.”
“Yeah… I don’t know if anything will,” I shiver to admit. It’s going to happen any minute now. Any second. The first shot, or tremor, or flash. The Lotus will do something, and it’ll be over. One way or another, at the end of the falling night, the fate of the Broken Academy will be decided.
“Well, in case you wanted to resume pacing, you were on lap fifty-six,” Stephanie adds as she floats in through the concrete wall. I groan my way into a deep slump.
“Seriously? I only counted fifty-three!” I whine. Stephanie rolls her eyes at my ridiculousness. Dorian, however, seems suddenly unable to look directly at either of us. He keeps his head cocked slightly away as he asks:
“Is the perimeter set?” I raise an eyebrow at the peculiar shift. Where is the awkwardly shy schoolboy Dorian I know, which only appears around Stephanie?
“So say the Magicians,” Stephanie answers, just as cold. I take an instinctual step toward them both. I can’t believe how much it yanks my heartstrings to see them like this. We’ve only just been brought together again, across ended lifetimes and unspeakable odds. How can they stand to be this way to one another? “The illusory curtain around the Academy training zone will double in size when the Lotus appear. The Normans should be totally in the dark.”
“Good,” rumbles Dorian. He takes a few paces back toward the innermost, sheltered alleys around the Tether. “I’ll go ready the Vampires.” At first it made my skin crawl. To be working with so many Vampires at once – and not just any Vampires. The very ones we’d saved the Normans from in this very spot, a week ago. With their frenzy calmed, they filled a dire need for numbers in the Academy-Kyrie alliance. Now, my skin crawls more at the oddly passive-aggressive display between my parents. But, before I can sort that out, my phone buzzes in my pocket.
“Hello?” I say into the speaker when I see the name. Lee. I have to answer. But doing so loses me my chance to reach out to Dorian. He vanishes into the inner alleys. “Are you okay? I heard all the other groups…didn’t do so well,” my voice cracks.
“We won, Cece,” Lee whimpers. I hear the smirk in his voice, which crawls right onto my own face. ‘We did it. Two Tethers left. We…we might be able to save the Academy.”
“We will,” I correct him. His choice of wording makes me fearful for what Lee’s just been through. For what Stephanie, Dorian and I are about to go through. “I won’t let them take us down. Just like you didn’t. I’m…so glad you’re alright.”
“You’d better,” Lee sniffles. “I’m going to see you when we go back home. We’re both going to be there, understand?”
“Loud and clear,” I smile. I rub a sleeve across my eyes to clear the blurriness of water. “How…how did you do it?”
“Surprise,” Lee tells me. He takes a minute to clear his throat. “We hit them with all the Dragon power we had, but it wasn’t until Hoster got involved that we turned the tables. He…summoned hundreds of other Astrals to help us. You have to surprise them, Cece.” I chew the inside of my lips, brain already alight with equal parts possibilities and fear.
“You know I’m the girl for the job,” I assure myself, through Lee.
“I do,” Lee murmurs. He sounds like he might drift off into exhausted sleep any second. “I love you.” Whoah. Where did that come from? An unspoken truth that neither of us has shared. Not before, at least. Not when Serge and I were still… And Bryant was… It’s all too painful to think of now. To figure it all out. All I can say is what I know I feel.
“I love you too, Lee,” I tell him. Then the first silhouette appears on Valencia Street, just outside the alleyway. I watch a wave of glassy light spread wide – the illusory curtain. “I’ll see you later.” I end the call, and begin the battle for our lives.
My shoes line up with the edge of the alleyway. Before I can go a step further, wind wrenches my hair and clothes into a wild fit. Bodies blur into life at my sides and behind me. A private guard of Vampires zips out from the heart of the Training Zone. They wait around me in a silent circle for orders. Like I’m some kind of General. But then again, this is war.
“Those Normans out there,” I say to my group, “they’ve got no idea what just hit them. Get them outside of the curtain before they see something they shouldn’t.” The Vampires inch forward, but no one zips off to follow the order. “Keep your eyes down and they can’t get to you. I’ll be right behind you.” I give it another second, but Vampires remain everywhere around me. None break our protective formation. Fine. I step out into the open. “Or ahead of you,” I say. The crisp, cool night breeze sweeps my braided hair back over my shoulder. I fix my sights firmly on the Lotus, mixed in with the crowd. Here we go.
A bow bun bolt jumps out at my breast. I slide sideways for it to stick in the asphalt instead. I spit a concentrated blast of flame from my throat right back at my attacker. The heatwave strikes, unfurls, and knocks two of the Lotus off their feet. With the way the Normans drop to the ground, covering their heads, I’m not sure what they’re seeing. Thanks to our Magician backup, it certainly isn’t Dragons and Vampires. But whatever little interference bleeds through into their world, it must be terrifying. Thankfully, they don’t have to endure it for long.
Vampire comrades zip out all around me. They keep their eyes low enough to avoid the flashing core of the Lotus’ disabling orbs. Pale blurs wrench around the opening of Valencia street. They zip out, past the edge of the illusory curtain, then back to take another Norman to safety. I keep the Lotus off of them by keeping them on me. I use the opening of the alleyway as my base to launch fiery projectiles. Robed warriors fall away, maimed and paralyzed, but there always seems to be another to fill their rank.
Lotuses bleed from the surrounding alleys, from inside dark buildings and who knows where else. It’s all I can do not to get skewered by one of their bow gun bolts. A myriad of the railroad spikes cracks the wall of windows behind me.
“Magicians!” Dorian’s voice booms down on the battleground like thunder. I chance a glimpse straight upward. True to our plan, he’s directly overhead, on the rooftops of the back alley apartments. He’s flanked on each side by ten Academy illusionists. But what they have planned now is no illusion. Every one of them cocks an arm back over their shoulder. A translucent pike forms in the grasp of each. “Release!”
The rain of glassy weapons is accompanied by an explosive bang. Dorian’s enormous black-scaled frame bursts from fire in the rooftops. He skirts over the battle with a heavy flame spewing from his jaw. Some of the Lotus that dive to dodge it are met with the skewer of a translucent javelin from above. The others have me to deal with.
I furl out a quick coat of flame to spin into my true, scaly body. I gallop and glide close to the ground, aiming for the Lotus preoccupied with Dorian. His torrential flame rips up a line of pavement while mine swirls fatally around to the sky. We’ve trapped the Lotus in an inescapable coffin of fire. But not all of them, it seems.
“Miss Cece!” one of the Vampires cries out as she zips back in from the Norman rescue.
“Ew! Don’t ever call me that again,” I snarl before I can help myself. “What?”