by Logan Jacobs
“Hopefully,” Razor replied as he tipped his beer in Cirsen’s direction with a smirk.
“Here, take this then,” Cirsen said as he tossed the golden egg at Razor, who caught it with a look of awe.
“How’d you get it out of there?” Razor asked. “I figured those guild assholes would be swarming the place.”
“Bomb.” Cirsen shrugged. “Never underestimate the power of a good distraction. Especially one that causes mass chaos. It’s like screaming ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. Nobody even noticed that I was gone.”
“Aw geez, you didn’t kill anyone, did you?” one of the others asked.
Suddenly, Cirsen’s demeanor changed, and he was on the guy with the speed of a Fae. The tall elf grabbed the man around his collar and lifted him out of his camp chair easily. A look of horror spread over his face as he gasped for air.
“Do you really want to question my decisions, human?” Cirsen seethed. His tone held a dark warning in it. “Because if you continue, you’ll be victim number two.” He glared at the man in his grip. “Is that clear, Ray?”
“Crystal!” he gasped out as he shook his head vigorously. His hands went up to try to pull himself free of Cirsen’s grip, but the elf let go and tossed Ray back into the chair with a growl.
“I think that sometimes you forget who you’re working for,” Cirsen growled as he turned to the group of humans. “The Phobos have chosen you despicable humans for your skills with animals and with thievery. You work for us, not with us. If you serve us diligently, we might just spare your lives when we take over. Do not make me question that decision.”
Cirsen threw a dark look around at the men, and they all nodded vigorously. Then, Razor reached out and smacked the back of Ray’s head for good measure.
“Back us up a little,” I whispered to Maaren.
The hunter flew us back up into the tunnel, and we landed softly in the water. She turned to me, and her face was outlined by the glow of the roaring bonfire. She still had her human glamour on, the tanned skin lit up beautifully in the light. Maaren’s face was hard, and her body was stiff.
“We should try not to kill the humans,” I whispered. “They’re just hired guns, and they clearly aren’t fanatics like the Phobos, so I think they might answer our questions.”
“You’re right,” she said sadly. “As much as I’d love to kill them for what they’re doing to these animals, an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”
“What about Cirsen?” I asked. “He’s a member of the Phobos. Should we try to take him alive, too?”
“It’s worth a shot,” she whispered with a shrug. “We don’t know if he has a Hand, though. If he does, it could make things more difficult. Besides, even if we do take him, he might have one of those suicide pills like the girl from the zoo.”
“I’d be shocked if he didn’t,” I sighed. “And you’re probably right about him having a Hand. You don’t get to run a full-on criminal gang without having some sort of power.”
Maaren drew her axe from its holster against her thigh before she gave me a once over. “I suggest you take that jacket off. It might get in the way.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but she was right. I shrugged off my jacket and dropped it into the sludgy water as she took a step forward. Somehow, Maaren looked even hotter with a axe in her hand and her breasts spilling from the top. Her hair had started to become a little frizzy, and she pulled a hairband from who knew where and used it to tie her auburn curls up in a ponytail.
I forced myself not to drool, but I was sure my mouth was hanging open like an idiot.
“You can’t look at me like that.” She giggled softly when she saw my stare. “I’ll lose my focus and start thinking about the abs that are hiding under your shirt.”
I blushed a little at the way her green eyes flitted over my torso hungrily, but I shook it off. There would be plenty of time for that later.
Maaren’s face contorted into a look of surprise. “I forgot,” she whispered. Then, she reached down to the holster where her she had kept her axe and produced a tiny pouch. The hunter handed it to me proudly, and I weighed it in my hands.
“What’s this?” I prompted.
“I wasn’t sure what we were going to run into tonight, so I brought some knock-out bullets,” she said proudly, as if I should know what she meant.
“And knock-out bullets are …?” I asked.
“Give me your gun and open the pouch,” she replied as she held her hand out. I did, and she pulled out the magazine and tipped the bullets from the pouch into her hand. They were tiny white plastic cylinders with a small needle that stuck out from the tip.
“I’ve never seen these kinds of bullets before,” I said as I stared at the needle. I outstretched a finger to touch the tiny white cylinders before Maaren stopped me.
“Don’t touch the needle,” she ordered. “They’re loaded with a poison that will knock a victim out for twelve hours. It’s the pollen of a special Fae plant that only blooms once a century. Welcome to the Fae alternative for clunky tranq darts. They’re .45 calibers, custom-made to fit your gun.”
“Maaren, you are a genius,” I whispered. I leaned in and planted a soft kiss on her lips. She went rigid for a moment, but then her soft lips melded to mine. The kiss went on for a few seconds before the fae pulled back to load my gun’s magazine with the new bullets. She put my lethal rounds back into the sack and clipped it back onto her holster.
“All set.” The hunter grinned as she handed me back my gun gingerly. “It will take precise concentration on my part, but if I hover you above them, do you think you could take them out?”
“Hell yeah,” I said enthusiastically. “Death from above.”
“Sleep from above,” she corrected. “We want them alive if we can possibly do it.”
Maaren nodded and stepped back slightly. She held out her Hand, and my body rose into the air once more. She twisted her open palm slightly, and I went horizontal as she flew me out of the tunnel.
The air pockets that kept me afloat bubbled and shifted underneath me gracefully, and soon enough I was hovering above the bonfire. All four of the men were in various states of distraction, and I just hoped that they didn’t look up. I glanced back to see that Maaren had crept out to the edge of the sewer tunnel to watch me, her Hand raised in the air as she lowered me down the last few feet into position.
Once I was close enough, I took aim at the first man. He was asleep and made for a very easy target, but I needed to make sure he’d stay down once the chaos started. I squeezed the trigger, and a silent bullet shot out from my gun and planted itself firmly in his arm. His body went even more slack, and I looked back at Maaren in surprise.
The hunter shot me a smile and tapped her temple cleverly. These bullets must have been enchanted to be totally silent, even when I used a human made gun. It was brilliant.
Since no one had noticed my shot, I took aim at the next person, an older man with an exorbitant amount of facial hair. Unfortunately, he wasn’t asleep. I knew that the moment I took him down, the other men would leap into action. I surveyed the scene and readied myself to take the next shots quickly. All three of the remaining men had guns holstered to their side, and as powerful as I was, I wasn’t bulletproof.
Steadily, I took aim at the man and squeezed the trigger. The tiny dart struck the guy in the ass, and he tipped backward as his bulky form fell on top of the bullet. That bought me some time.
“Clay, damnit, don’t fall asleep now,” Razor demanded as he stepped over to the now unconscious man. “You need to stand watch!”
They’d realize in a few short moments that something was up, but in the meantime, it was open season. I took Ray down with a bullet in his neck, and then I shot another one directly at Razor’s exposed butt. The dart struck the thief and he toppled over on top of Clay instantly.
“What in the--” Cirsen growled and looked up. The elf’s eyes met mine and narrowed.
I aimed as q
uickly as I could and fired directly at his chest, but Cirsen dove out of the way in the nick of time.
Suddenly, I dropped out of the air and landed hard on the cement island, and my gun skidded out of my grip. There was a loud splash above me, and then I heard Maaren desperately sputter for air.
“Holy shit!” Maaren exclaimed as I recovered from my sudden fall.
“Nice try, pretty boy,” Cirsen said with a smirk. “But a filthy human will never outsmart a member of the Phobos.”
“Maaren?” I called as I turned to look up at the sewer tunnel, but the hunter was no longer there.
“We’ve got a problem,” Maaren called out shakily as she floated in the air above the open chasm with a hand on the haft of her axe. Brown sewer water dripped off her shaken form as she hovered about five feet out, with her back to me as she stared down the depths of the tunnel. Something had disturbed her concentration.
But I couldn’t focus on Maaren. Cirsen rose from the ground and dashed in my direction. I made a mad lunge for my gun as the elf charged me, and Cirsen was still two steps away from me when I snatched up my weapon, took quick aim, and unloaded the remaining five bullets at him.
And then he used his Hand for the first time.
As he raised an open palm before him, the bullets froze in midair and shook a little before they spun around and shot back at me. I quickly threw myself into a backward roll, and the five bullets smacked into the ground needle-first, right where I’d been moments before. They exploded into white powder with the impact, and I covered my nose so I didn’t breathe any of it in.
“Hand of Metal,” Cirsen taunted as he waggled his fingers at me with a sharp grin. “It’s pretty handy, if you ask me. Now, you’ll not be needing this.”
The elf yanked his hand backward, and my gun flew out of my hand as if tugged by an invisible string before coming completely apart and clattering to the ground.
“Fine,” I growled. “You asked for this!”
I gritted my teeth and called up my own Hand. Cirsen crept forward with a slow smile on his face like he’d already won the game as I connected with his blood, and the moment I heard Maaren’s scream reverberate through the chasm, I instinctively looked up to see what the commotion was about.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Maaren shrieked from above as a handful of massive tentacles burst out from the sewer tunnel and lunged at the half-Fae.
The damn thing was even more horrifying than the hydra Ariette and I had faced. It was a giant, inky black colored squid-like creature, with a head that was probably twenty feet long. Upon its face sat bulbous white eyes with tiny black irises that spun around in its head, tracking Maaren as she moved. A huge, cavernous mouth gaped open in the bottom center of its head, and it was lined with a row of giant, sharp teeth.
But it was the tentacles themselves that were the most terrifying.
They emanated from the belly of the beast and curled and stretched through the air, and many of them looked to be almost ten feet long. They were the same inky black on the top, but the underside of each was a sickly, pale pink color, and dotted with huge clear suckers that were lined with sharp teeth, similar to its mouth.
I stared at the creature for another second and really hoped that thing was full grown. Because if it was still a baby, I did not want to see how big it would get as an adult.
“Who the fuck summons a fucking Kraken!” Maaren cried as she slashed at one of the tentacles. The half-Fae was in the air, and she ducked and swirled to avoid the massive tentacles that lashed out at her in an attempt to knock her out of the sky.
“I see your friend has met the Kraken,” Cirsen laughed devilishly. “He really is my favorite.” Then he lunged toward me.
I spun around just in time, but he still knocked us both into the murky sewer water that surrounded their concrete island. This water was deep, much deeper than the water in the tunnels, and it was full of floating things I didn’t want to think about.
As we crashed beneath the surface together, I struggled to find some sort of footing, but my feet found nothing but more water. I kicked with all my might, and as my head broke the surface, I lashed out with my leg in the direction Cirsen had just been. I felt my foot make contact with the elf’s torso, and he elf let out a gasp of pain as the churning currents took hold of us both.
I felt the water begin to drag me back under, but it wasn’t going to take me without a fight. I gasped and sputtered as I pushed back against the current, and then I turned to see where it was dragging me. My heart sank into my chest when I saw the huge waterfall that quickly approached.
There was an echoing roar off in the distance that rang out from over the edge, and I knew that could only mean one thing.
This wasn’t going to be a short drop, and I did not want to find out how far it really was. Quickly, I turned and tried to swim upstream in the murky water. My enhanced Fae muscles pulled me slightly forward, only for me to be dragged backward again. Still, while I was trapped in the current, at least I didn’t move any closer to the edge.
Cirsen, meanwhile, wasn’t so lucky. The elf had also gotten caught in the current, and he struggled to keep his head above water as he swam forward and desperately reached for something to grab onto.
I glanced upward and saw Maaren push herself out of reach of the largest of the kraken’s tentacles as the beast gnawed and hissed at her. Its bulbous eyes spun in its sockets like Ferris wheels, and it used the suckers on its tentacles to crawl around the wall like a spider. The hunter held her axe at the ready in front of her and sliced at any tentacles that came too close, but there were just too many in the way. She couldn’t find a good angle to get at its head and kill the thing.
Kind of like my own situation, she was treading the proverbial water well, but she wasn’t making any progress. I’d help her out, but I was kind of preoccupied with not drowning or being tossed over the gigantic waterfall. We were all sort of stuck.
“K-Kraken!” Cirsen desperately sputtered out. He bobbed a little lower in the water now, and I could tell he was close to going under for good.
The kraken instantly shifted its attention to Cirsen, and it began to clamber quickly down over the walls. It dove into the water with a titanic splash, and I barely managed to keep my head above water with the cresting waves of sewage now throwing me around.
As the churning waters started to quiet a bit, I caught myself against the side of the concrete island and spun around in the water quickly as I searched for the beast. My stomach went tight, and my heart pounded in my chest as I fought the current and tried to remain calm.
“Milton, hold on!” Maaren called down to me.
I felt a cushion of air bubble up from the water underneath me. A moment later, it surrounded my lower body and pushed me upward, out of the dangerous currents.
At the same time, one of the kraken’s tentacles breached the water’s surface and raised Cirsen out of the water. The elf rode it proudly as it deposited him back on the island, and then he brushed off his shoulder as if it were nothing. More tentacles burst forth at the same time, and I was forced to dive off the safety of Maaren’s air cushion. The kraken let loose a thunderous roar as I leapt for the only solid object nearby and landed on the kraken’s head.
As I got my bearings, I turned my head to come face-to-face with a bulbous eye the size of my torso.
“Holy shit!” I yelled as I scrambled to my feet. The kraken’s teeth gnashed together hungrily as I slipped and slid across its squid-like head. A web of tentacles swayed and snaked above me like a prison of slimy vines, and even the teeth around the suckers chomped in anticipation.
“To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell's heart, I stab at thee; For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!” Maaren snarled from somewhere above me. Then, I saw the glint of her axe as it sliced through a tentacle and reduced it to little more than a dark green stump. As the writhing limb fell away, the kraken let out a pained cry.
I could now see Maa
ren’s face through the hole she had created. Her glamour was gone, and her dark blue lips smiled down at me proudly.
“Need a hand?” she quipped and reached out toward me.
“My beautiful creature!” Cirsen roared, and an unseen force suddenly wrenched Maaren’s axe in her grip.
Thankfully, the half-Fae’s grip was stronger than mine, and she was yanked through the air along with her axe. Moments later, the clang of clashing blades sounded out, and I could only guess that Cirsen was engaged in combat with Maaren. I tried to bolt from my precarious position on the kraken’s head, but a huge tentacle struck me in the stomach and knocked me down. Meanwhile, the clash of blades from the battle outside grew more forceful.
The tentacles above me closed the opening that Maaren had created, and then a few of them tried to sweep me into the beast’s mouth. I slipped from side to side, barely ducking past each snatching tentacle, and then I came face to face with the enormous eye once again.
“Not so fast,” I said to the bulbous orb, and then I called forth the tingle of magic to the palm of my Hand. I felt the creature’s viscous blood in my Hand like molasses, but it was like the kraken could read my mind. The moment I connected with the creature’s blood, it let loose a blood-curdling shriek and smashed me in the back with a huge tentacle. The Kraken’s tentacles retreated as I flew through the air, and I hit the water hard.
The murky brown liquid swirled over my head, and for a moment, I was totally disoriented. I spun frantically in the thick water as I tried to discern which way was up. My lungs burned from lack of air, and my eyes burned desperately as I tried to squint through the disgusting murk. Even with my Fae senses, it was difficult to see in the sewer water. As I twisted my torso and saw the hint of light above me that indicated the surface, a huge, dark object came into my view. Suddenly, the kraken’s eyes flew open inches in front of me.
I cried out instinctively in shock, and a gagging wave of sewage flooded into my mouth.
As the tentacles started to create a web around me, I called on my Hand. The adrenaline rushing through my veins seemed to snap the world into focus for that one second I needed to make a connection, and I knew I wasn’t going to have a second chance.