Beyond the Veil

by Tim Marquitz

  Longinus gave them their fill. He stood in their midst, his sword a glistening arc hacking through their ranks. Gore traced the weapon’s path through alien flesh, the pea green of their lives free of their bodies and set loose to rain down overtop those who survived. But it wasn’t only the aliens who suffered.

  Red streaks of Longinus’ blood stood out stark against the sallow paleness of his skin. He stood with a shield of magical energy in his left hand, its curved shape deflecting the majority of the attacks aimed at him, but it was hardly perfect. Even from where I sat inside the cab of the truck, I could see he was wearing down; could feel it. There was none of his bluster, his swordsmanship crass and brutal. It was effective, but there was no grace behind his swings, no movement to his feet. He stood flat, heels to the earth, as the aliens advanced.

  Dark circles made his eyes deep pits, effectively camouflaging them in the grime that blackened his face. His chest bellowed as he fought on. The line was driving him slowly, inexorably, backward. My heart sank to see it. I could barely feel his energy despite his efforts. Whatever battles he’d endured since we parted had taken their toll.

  There was no sign or sense of Gorath, but it was possible he was waiting for Longinus to tire even more. The number of alien bodies that littered the ground at the ex-AC’s feet was tantamount to the carnage he was still capable of dealing out. Piles and piles of wet, dripping corpses lay still on the streets surrounding him. He had brought down a legion of them but still they advanced. The glint of their weapons sparkled all around him, splatters of crimson left in their wake.

  Certain I wouldn’t last more than a few seconds in the middle of the killing zone, my mind scrambled to think of a way to help without it being a suicide mission. There wouldn’t be any virgins waiting for me where I went, which was probably a good thing. They were more trouble than they were worth. Besides, the only virgins these days are virgins for a reason. Most likely because they’re too damn ugly for anyone to brave popping that cherry, even in the dark. Beer goggles had their limits, no matter what anyone says.

  So, Rambo-mode out of the question, I looked for inspiration from my road rage days—which have really never ended, but that’s beside the point.

  My breath clutched in my lungs, I floored the accelerator and steered straight at the horde of aliens besieging Longinus. While they were too busy slugging it out with the big guy to notice me yet, they would soon enough. Once they did, there wasn’t much chance I’d get more than a few dozen of them by trying to run them down. I’d just end up getting swarmed, the truck cab a pre-made coffin I would die in. That didn’t sound fun.

  So instead of going kamikaze, I summoned a ball of coalesced energy and rolled it through the small window at the back of the cab, the one that connected it to the covered bed. The mystical roly-poly slipped out of sight, thumping about amongst the cylinders that filled the back. I heard it settle after a moment and sighed. It sucked being braver than smart. The hard way or the highway, and my dumb ass chose the hard way every fucking time.

  The aliens looked up as I hit the horn. I wasn’t so much as trying to warn them as I was Longinus. He’d been just as oblivious as the Eidolon, but I figured now would be as good a time as any to duck. Wide eyes filled the alien faces as the truck barreled toward them. Longinus’ head snapped my direction, and while he might not have realized it was me behind the wheel, there was no hiding the truck’s intent. He took advantage of the lull and dove for cover. That was my cue.

  I willed a tendril of magic to wrap around the steering wheel, holding it straight while I climbed out the window, the back end wound about my wrist. On the roof, I winked at the rapidly approaching aliens and spun around, jumping over the bed of the truck, letting its forward motion assist. A quick snap of the magical leash and the truck swerved. Its wheels dug into the asphalt and it skidded sideways, traction giving way in a shuddered screech. Black streaks scorched the road, and then came to an abrupt end as the wheels went suddenly airborne. Then the truck toppled. The side of it hit the street and bounced, catapulting the vehicle into the air. It fell into the mass of aliens clustered too tight to escape. There was a tremendous series of pops, as if a million twigs had been snapped at once. Aliens slumped as the truck tumbled over them, shattered bodies flung into the air behind it as it rolled on its merry way.

  The cylinders in the back clanged and clattered, steel ringing off steel inside the confined of the enclosed bed. I hit the ground right then, and rolled into the loving embrace of momentum. She’s a real bitch.

  Asphalt piranhas swarmed despite my efforts to minimize the damage, shredding my skin with tiny bites as I skipped across the street. Fortunately, road rash was one of the few rashes that didn’t require an ointment to fix. A couple of ugly bounces later, the vehicle ended up right where I wanted it: smack dab in the middle of the alien congregation. They groaned and cursed while I tumbled to a stop—the truck still going—but they hadn’t seen anything yet.

  A flicker of will triggered the ball of energy I’d dropped into the truck bed. It went off instantly. On its own, it might have taken out a couple of the bastards and been a great advertisement for the benefits of sunscreen to a bunch of others, but that wasn’t what I had in mind.

  The tiny gems plugged into the caps would add a little energy to the mix, but it was the cylinders themselves that were the fun part. Designed to amplify the energy channeled into them, they were the extra torque on a wrench that allowed a frozen bolt to snap free. Given how many of the things there were stashed inside the bed, I was looking at a lot of torque. Oh, and lots and lots of shrapnel.

  A rather unassuming boom went off, muffled by layers of steel surrounding the explosion, but about two heartbeats later, we were looking at the Apocalypse. There was a piercing hiss, followed by a rapid-fire crackle, steel shattering like glass. The world shook at a thunderous whoomp and the air was filled with the shriek of murderous bees.

  I tucked my head and curled into a ball as shards of sharpened metal stung the ground around me. As far as I was from the center of the blast, I was surprised by just how many times I was hit by the wreckage, pieces peppering my back and arms. A steady stinging sensation spread out across my skin. It didn’t stop me from smiling.

  Screams penetrated my covered ears, jagged and hoarse, only to be severed an instant later by the continuing hail of deadly missiles. I could hear the clink of shrapnel, sounding machine gun fast, as it swept through the makeshift battlefield, the noise echoing overhead. There was a steady thump of bodies hitting the ground, wet splashes accompanying the clatter. And while I was worried I’d done more than just a little collateral damage to the Felurians hiding out in their homes and shops, there wasn’t much I could do about that. I hadn’t been the one to choose the location of the scrap.

  That was the unfortunate side effect of war, but it served its purpose no matter what the pacifists and anti-war protesters might believe. You didn’t win a battle by killing off the entirety of the enemy army, because that was damn near impossible. No, you won by doing enough damage to the country that the people there, those who would be left behind after all the fighting had passed on, were forced to rise up against the controlling regime or they’d be the ones destroyed. There was no beating the enemy; war was all about making life so miserable that it outweighed the desire for victory or freedom or whatever motivation they’d been motivating the machine with. Once the desire was gone, the system fell apart and the fight was over. I was hoping that would be the case today.

  As I clambered to my feet, a quick glance at my porcupine ass told me that might be the case. While I had metal splinters poking out of me all over the place, the wounds were minor and I could feel them healing already. There was none of the sickening, black ooze that accompanied a mystical injury, for which I was grateful. The cylinders had only been enhanced with magic, not made of it. Whatever power had gone into their creation had been spent when they exploded, the energy used to propel the shrapnel. That made thing
s easier on me and Longinus, but to the Eidolon folks—those who survived—it didn’t mean shit.

  I could hear their moans and wet gasps as I looked across the field for the ex-AC. Bodies parts were everywhere. It looked like a leper convention. Green blood covered the ground in artistic splatters, which could probably be seen from space, there was so much of it. Pieces of the truck were scattered about amidst the ruin of the Eidolon forces, steel and mechanical bits welded and scorched together with flesh as to make it impossible to where one part ended and the other began.

  A subtle wave of twitching movements made the ground look as though it were a carpet crawling with insects. Heads lolled and eyes swirled in their ruined sockets, fingers and toes dancing under the instinctive music of tortured nerves. The Eidolon that escaped the brunt of the explosion headed for the exits, many dragging parts of themselves or companions behind. It was an exodus of dying turtles, a slow creep toward oblivion. I had no doubt that many of them would live to see tomorrow, and probably several days beyond that, but I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be signing up to do Gorath’s bidding the next time he needed cannon fodder. A Pyrrhic victory, at best. I certainly wasn’t winning them over to our side.

  At least Longinus had dodged the worst of it.

  He rose up out of a pile of corpses, shrugging the carcasses aside with a weary huff. It didn’t look as though he’d taken much additional damage from my stunt, but he sure didn’t look good. His wild hair was matted with blood, his and the aliens’, with one side plastered to his cheek and shoulder. Tired, dark eyes peered from sunken sockets. His arms hung at his side, the blade of his sword dragging in the muck of guts and gore as he walked toward me. He was mobile. That was something.

  “Where have you been?” he asked, and I had to stifle a smile at the viciousness still present in his voice. There was no quit in the old guy, that’s for sure.

  I brushed the metal shards loose of my flesh as he came to stand in front of me. “Looking for you, most recently.” The blue gem out of my pocket and in my palm, I showed it to him. “You’ve had the line off the hook.”

  He glared at the stone and shook his head. “It must have broken. I’ve been trying to contact you for hours.”

  You know that feeling you get when you’re trying to call your significant other but all you get is the answering machine? You fret and fret that she’s cheating on you, that something bad has happened, that it’s over and she just couldn’t be bothered to tell you, and then she calls and says she lost her phone and you’re all elated because it’s nothing like what you conjured up? That was how I felt right then.

  Well, maybe not quite that way. Since there wasn’t time for a makeup quickie, I would just have to be glad Longinus hadn’t kicked me to the curb.

  “All this,” I motioned to the wreckage around us, “is nothing more than a trap to wear you down.”

  He stared at me a moment before letting his gaze wander over the mess I’d made in the street. Without a word, he went over to one of the squirming wounded and lifted the alien up so that they were face to face. The guy whimpered and hung limp.

  “Where is my daughter?”

  Green goop bubbled from the Eidolon’s mouth as he muttered something incomprehensible. His eyes floated like sinking rowboats in his head. There wouldn’t be any answers coming from him.

  “We need to get out of here,” I told Longinus as he cast the alien aside.

  “Do you still fear these creatures?”

  He waded through their bodies in search of another who might have the strength to answer his questions about Karra. I saw Iriaal’s face amidst the carnage, his expression one of peace. He’d died fast from the looks of him, long before I’d shown up judging by the lack of shrapnel wounds. There was no hint of the dagger nearby, its absence nagging. Longinus just kept stomping on.

  I grabbed his arm and forced him to stand still. His eyes snapped to mine. “I was wrong about why Gorath is holding Karra, or at least some part of it.” I yanked the dagger piece out and showed it to Longinus. “Recognize this?” His eyes narrowed. “You should, seeing how someone tried to pig-stick you with it, just like that guy there tried with me before he realized I wasn’t you.” I pointed to Iriaal. “Gorath is using Earth magic to drain yours. All the Eidolon movements and caches are designed to lure you in so Gorath can take the power he needs from you to face Lucifer.”

  He shook his head, but I could tell by the look on his face that what I was telling him was sinking in.

  “That alien fuck has you running all over this place like public transit, and he’s whittling your power down at every stop. If you keep going—” That was all I got out.

  A blur of motion whipped past me, nearly knocking me on my ass, a figure bulling Longinus to the ground about twenty feet from where we stood. They went down in a pile of snarls and thrashing limbs.

  Twenty

  “You have gone too far, demon!” a voice shouted, and it slowly dawned on me that it was Jesus’.

  He straddled Longinus, throwing punches at his face. Blood splattered and Longinus bucked, slipping an arm under the savior’s leg before tossing him off to the side. Jesus rolled and hopped to his feet as Longinus scrambled to his.

  “I’ll kill you, Christ.”

  “Just as you did before?” he asked, a crooked smirk swelling his lips as he spread his arms to his sides, mocking. “You are nothing, Maximus; a plague among your own kind. Lucifer had the right of it when he murdered you with his pets, only he should have stolen your soul for his own.” His grin widened. “But I’m grateful he didn’t, as that leaves it for me.”

  Longinus sword cleared his scabbard. “Do you miss your essence, Jesus? The gift of the Earthbound Christ?” He spit a phlegmy wad of blood at the ground. “Well, there it is, Christ. You’re welcome to collect it.”

  My head swam with the hostility. I knew the two had some serious bad blood between them—you just can’t stab a guy and steal his power without pissing him off—but I had no clue as to why Jesus had chosen now to make an issue of it.

  “What the hell are you doing, Jesus?”

  His gaze snapped my direction, and I could suddenly feel the heat of his stare. “Stay out of this devil spawn. I’ll deal with you once I’m done with Maximus.”

  Nothing made any sense, not that it ever did in my world. “Deal with him? For what?”

  Christ rose up, puffing his chest out indignantly. “For the slaughter of my people.” Jesus didn’t say anything more. He was on Longinus before the words had even settled in my ears.

  They crashed together, spittle and blood flinging everywhere as they clashed. The air rumbled with discordant thunder as though the clouds were cheering them on, and I could feel the waft of Christ’s energy as it buffered my senses. The two were going at it like feral cats, and the very last thing I wanted to do was stick any part of me in between to stop them. A guy could lose a finger doing something stupid like that.

  As much as I wanted to let them sort this crap out for themselves, I knew I’d have to do something…and soon. While Jesus didn’t seem to be packing all of Daddy’s heat, it was pretty damn clear he was the alpha in this particular pack. Longinus was holding his own, but there was no way he would hold it for long. Battered and bone weary before they’d even started to get down, Longinus was already losing ground. Adding to the bruises and cuts, Jesus was using the ex-AC’s face for knuckle impressions. I could feel the energy vibrating through me as they traded blows, the street shaking beneath my feet. Both were conserving their magic, so there was no fireworks show or histrionics, but they sure weren’t holding back on trying to skull fuck each other with their fists.

  Though I knew I needed to intervene, Karra’s life at stake if Longinus lost, I hesitated. Something Jesus said had struck a sour chord. It plunked inside me, sounding over and over in my head. He had said, “…my people.”

  My eyes drifted from the brawl and traipsed over the bodies lying about. I went to the closest and poked a
nd prodded it. There, in the crook of the armpit, like all the other Eidolon I’d checked, was the phoenix tattoo. Slowly—well, probably not that slowly, but it felt like it as my focus narrowed into a pinprick—I ignored the grunts and curses of the two combatants and checked as many of the other bodies as I could reach.

  While the shrapnel had punched a million holes in each of the aliens, I kept finding the tattoo on pieces of meat scattered across the field. I ran my hand across one and felt the flat skin of the design, a subtle fading along its lines. My heart thrummed as I ran back to examine several of the other tattoos I’d spied. It was hard to be certain, but most appeared as though they’d been inked long ago, far more so than…

  Oh…shit.

  I spun away from the corpses and raced toward the grappling pair. Jesus was getting the better of Longinus. He hovered over him, raining blows down as the ex-AC struggled to defend. No time to be subtle, I barreled straight at them. Christ looked up, his eyes narrowing, but that was all he had time for. I plowed into him, ducking my head and tucking my arms so I hit him flush with my forearms and elbows. We collided, two sacks of cement slamming into each other. I stumbled back a step or two, my momentum canceled by his last minute attempt at resistance, but he went flying. He hit the ground hard, kicking up a cloud of gray dust dotted with green specks as he tumbled into a crouch.

  “Demon!” The word roared out like a chainsaw coming to life.

  I stepped over Longinus, hands raised, as the ex-AC scrambled to gather his bearings. “The Eidolon are your minions?”

  Jesus stood, muscles coiled and ready to pounce. “Of course they are.”