by HDA Roberts
"Is that normal?"
It took Cathy to notice, pointing up at the forming whirlpool of blackness, centred over the Old Quarter.
I cast Mage Sight, already starting to panic.
"Oh God..." I said.
The sky was riddled with Black Magic, forming a vortex around a golden line of bright energy, that stretched from elsewhere and down into the ground, dark slivers of energy coiling and flowing down around the gold.
And then, just like that, it was done. The clouds started to change colour into a less threatening dark grey.
"Cathy, get back inside and stay there until I get back," I said.
"But..." she began.
"Please?"
"Okay," she said, planting a kiss on my cheek, "but be careful, okay?"
"When am I not?" I asked with a smile, calling my shadows.
They pulled me into the air, and I flew towards where I'd seen the vortex centred. I wasn't even a quarter of the way there when I felt a pulse of power. It was like a bomb going off to my Mage senses, to say nothing of my Mage Sight. I was so disoriented I nearly ploughed into a building and then another one as I staggered back on course.
The feeling of the magic was hard to describe. But if I had to put words to it, then I'd have said that it felt like something horrible being born; a true abomination in the fabric of reality.
I sped up, flying higher so I could clear the rooftops and gain more speed.
It started to rain, great, fat, icy drops that spattered off my cocoon. The energy was fading fast, but the storm caused by the spell was just getting started.
I was able to follow the last traces of Black Magic over the roofs and into a large graveyard behind St. Lydia's Chapel. There was a massive hole where half a dozen graves had exploded, the edges encrusted with black ice. I had my shadows set me down next to the crater, my shields up and ready, scanning the area carefully with my Mage Sight.
There was nothing. I looked in the hole and there were only the shattered remains of the coffin. Revenant, the word popped into my head, the only conclusion I could draw, and it horrified me right to my core.
I wasn't ready. I simply wasn't ready...
I looked around, searching for some clue as to the creature's identity. I accounted for the six other gravestones, matching them with their positions. I finally found the one the Revenant had come out of, if for no other reason than the dates were enchanted to that a Pureborn would see a slightly less ridiculous birthday:
Lucille Samantha Kenton
b. Dec 13th, 1685
d. Jan 1st 1825
Loved and lost, but never forgotten.
Kenton? I didn't know a Kenton. Who did I know that knew a Kenton?
She was a Mage, obviously, being one hundred and forty years old when she died in a time when a life expectancy of fifty was generally pushing your luck.
The date was ringing a very dim bell...
So was the name...
Samantha? The female version of my middle name, so what?
Lucille? Did I know a dead Lucille from somewhere? I could have sworn I knew something about a Lucille.
Or a Lucy.
Lucy, who died a few years after the Battle of Waterloo.
Oh God...
Tethys!
For once, I didn't get lost.
My shadows pulled me up and into the sky, soaring hard for the Purple Pussycat. As I got closer, I saw the traces of Black Magic, and a wide, gaping hole where the front door had been. I came in for a landing, but swerved back into the air as I felt the traces moving away. There hadn't been enough time for anything fatal to have happened to Tethys (I hoped and prayed), so I followed the Revenant.
Everything I'd been told about the curse said that the Revenant went straight for the target and didn't stop until it was quite dead, so I felt confident that I was on the right track, either to save Tethys... or avenge her. I'd never prayed so hard in my life before that moment.
I found my friend on the roof of a building bordering a white marble plaza, opposite the central branch of an HSBC. She was bleeding from one of her wings, another woman standing beside her, a Succubus too, horns, tail, wings and all, but she had scarlet hair. She seemed to be protecting Tethys from the Revenant standing nearby, staring both of them down.
Lucy Kenton had been a relatively plain-looking woman in her day, short with brown hair, rounded features and thin lips. But she had piercing intelligent eyes, and whopping amounts of power. I felt her gathering a shed-load of it.
"Oh, Honey, what's the matter, didn't you miss your Lucy?" Kenton said in a slick voice, her form rippling with power.
Flesh Mage.
Shapeshifter.
I hated Flesh Mages; they were hard enough to put down when they weren't powered by Black Magic...
Tethys was crying, great tears rolling down her face as she turned away from the love of her life.
"Keep back!" the other Succubus said, "Or I'll gut you like a fish!"
"Don't worry, pretty girl, I've plenty of love for you, too," Kenton said, stepping forward.
I used my element of surprise well, I think, sending a coil of shadow to take her head clean off her shoulders with a single swipe that sent it and her body tumbling over the side of the building. A great sheet of black blood spattered the roof and started melting the stone where it landed.
I landed gently nearby.
"Tethys!" I said, darting over.
The other Succubus hissed at me, but Tethys put a hand on her leg and she calmed down.
"Matty?!" Tethys said, her eyes darting to me. I knelt next to her, lowering my shields so she could wrap herself around me, her shoulders heaving with sobs.
"We have to go, I only slowed her down," I said.
"It's Lucy!" Tethys wailed, "It's my Lucy!"
"No, it a thing wearing her body," I said calmly, "I promise I'll take care of it, but we have to go."
"Oh, I think we're past that, don't you?"
There was a wet slap, and a wall of flesh slid over the top of the roof. The skin was greying and necrotic, fluid and yet sharp. Eyes and mouths were everywhere, along with long tentacles with sharp tips for stabbing and gouging. There was no identifiable centre; it was all appendages, spreading out like some jittery amoeba with teeth, fast and alien.
See what I mean? Flesh Mages... yuk.
"Both of you get behind me, hold on and don't move," I said, raising shields as the two women grabbed onto my chest. Tethys buried her face in my back, unwilling to look.
"Well, my love, it seems that you didn't take too long to replace me," Kenton's fleshy mess said through one of its terrible mouths.
"Bitch, please, she upgraded," said the other Succubus, and then to me, "I'm Karina, by the way, Tethys' sister."
"Oh, nice to meet you," I said, not taking my eye off the Fleshy mass.
"Upgraded? To this piece of Shadowborn- oh!" Kenton said, and then the mass convulsed in laughter, "Oh, dear Tethys, what a delightful web you weave!"
Mage Sight. I'd seen her cast it with my own. She was one talented woman. But then she had been the premier Battle Mage of her day. And with Fleshcraft like that, how the hell had Andromeda Caine been able to beat her? I was looking right at her, and I couldn't find a central nervous system to attack or a heart to rip out.
Of course, while she was jabbering, I wasn't wasting my time, I had a dozen generator spells up and running, and tiny balls of energy started to appear around me, along with a Dispel Cannon and a vastly reinforced set of shields.
"Tell you what, little man, hand my love over to me and I'll let you take the sister away. You two look like you might get along," Kenton said.
"Tethys is one of mine," I said, squeezing the hand that was wrapped around me, "but by all means, let's see if you can come take her."
"Just so you know, I'm going to make her watch as I take you apart very slowly," Kenton said, still in that reasonable tone of voice.
And just like that she was on me. That
engorged form wrapped around my shields, every inch of her skin saturated with Will and Chemical Energy. She tore at my shields, and was half way through before I even realised what was happening. I summoned my shadows and made them expand violently. There was a ripping sound, and Kenton flew away, bones and muscle poking through a massive gash.
She just laughed as I pursued with my shadows, making them barbed and heavy, swatting at her horrific form. She glowed bright orange, weakening my shadows as she surrounded her body with shields that moved and reshaped themselves with her.
She was too good for the brute force approach. I kept my shadows on her to keep her occupied while I readied the mother of all Shadow Lances. I threw it, and the shuddering mass... moved out of the way! With ridiculous, blinding speed! My lance hit a nearby roof.
Which then... exploded.
"Oops," I commented with a grimace.
"There wasn't anyone in there, was there?" Karina asked.
"No..." I said, "I hope."
The Kenton heap laughed again, "Bad aim, poor Spellwork, why would you choose him over me, my love?"
I loved it when the bad guys gloated. It meant I could sucker-punch them.
I collected a clutch of energy from my generated balls and sent a Chaos Lance straight into the centre of her. Her shields fell with a pop, and a great mass of flesh was torn free. I used my Will to drag it towards me so I could burn it to ash.
The mouths screamed in rage, and beams of Chemical Energy lashed out at my shields. I brought my shadows up, and they took the brunt while I readied a Rending Fog spell. It was like the Choking Fog spell I'd used on that Hunter Team, only this variant got right into the target and ripped everything to pieces from the inside.
The wall of Flesh and bone descended on us again, and I cast the Fog right into the mass of her as she tore through my shadows. It found all those little crevices and crannies in eyes, mouths and what might have been noses, but could just have been holes.
I followed up with enough force to blow a barrel-load of flesh off her back as she writhed and tore at herself. The eyes dissolved in pools of blood and mess, the nose holes expanded and bled, the mouths were torn wide open, teeth shattered.
She felt no pain, competent Flesh Mages don't have to, and the dead even less so. But she was disoriented enough for me to follow up with Fire. It wasn't generally an element I used, but needs must. My fireballs were sloppy, and they set fire to the roof around us, but they also burned the Revenant. Her shields went down, her limbs roasted, her skin charred right down to the bone, anything she might breathe through was sealed up.
Suddenly she leapt into the air to escape the inferno, heading towards the street.
I called my shadows and pushed massive amounts of power into them, dragging the squirming, evil form back into the blaze, which I fed and intensified. I spent power like it was going out of fashion and pinned her in place with a solid conjuring, enclosing the whole burning mess in a dome of Will.
As the last of her was seared away, one of those ghastly limbs reformed itself into a recognisable face; Lucy's.
"Tethys, please! Don't let him kill me again! I love you!"
I felt Tethys convulse behind me.
"It's not her, trust me, please," I said softly, squeezing her hand.
"I do," she said with another wracking sob.
I heard sirens and saw flashing lights. There was suddenly a helicopter overhead.
I spared no thought but for eradicating the monster in front of me. I poured more heat into the dome. The air and ground around us froze, and ice crystals formed everywhere.
The Revenant burned.
And at last there was nothing left but a melted trough in a stone roof, and a little ash that was all that remained of Lucille Kenton.
I released a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. Tethys and Karina had death grips on my chest, thankfully they were being gentle (for them) or they'd have crushed me like an eggshell.
"You two alrig-" I started.
"Look out!" Karina screeched as what can only be described at a sixty-foot snake with the thickness of a beer barrel launched itself over the lip of the roof and straight at us.
"What the bollocking hell?!" I shouted (alright, screamed), rebuilding all the energy I'd started to let go. Thankfully I hadn't dropped the shields or we'd have been dead.
How the hell had she survived?
Oh crap. The head.
I hadn't burned the head I'd knocked off!
"That wasn't nice," Kenton hissed, as she landed. I saw the head perched on the grotesque column of flesh and more Magic started to flare as her body rearranged itself. The coil split, and the head merged with the mass. I wasted no time, hurling a Shadow Lance. It hit the mass' centre, and suddenly the mound was coming straight at us, but the shadows were spreading and burrowing.
The Lance exploded against my shields, and I lost all but the inner layer in time for the rest of her to slam straight into it. I brought Will into place and shoved her back before calling my shadows to finish the job.
She flared into light again, but I was ready and shot off a fireball mixed with force that blew a crater in the remains of the flesh. Pieces of the Revenant flew everywhere, and I started burning everything I could see, taking no chances until everything was finally gone.
There was a single, drawn-out scream as the last big chunk was burned. But I got all of it.
I was breathing hard, half mad with fear. The roof was on fire again, and I took a minute to put it out. The helicopter was buzzing lower, and I heard a loud voice over a megaphone.
"Put your hands on your heads and lay down on the ground! You are under arrest!"
"Hold on tight," I said to the Succubae.
I pulled my shadows around us, supporting the women and myself, and cast a glamour that would project an illusion of empty air around us.
Karina squealed in surprise and excitement as we jumped into the air and took off to the West, darting around the helicopter and picking up speed. Tethys still hadn't said a word, and was holding on for dear life as far as I could tell.
I went back the way I'd come and set us down in the alley next to the Purple Pussycat, dropping the Illusion and my shadows.
Karina staggered away, her dark red hair askew, her violet eyes, so like her sister's, boring into me, like a lioness eyeing up a limping gazelle.
"That was amazing," she said, leaning against the wall.
I turned gently in Tethys' grip, until I was facing her, bringing her chin up with a soft touch of my fingers so I could look in her eyes.
"What can I do?" I asked, cupping her face.
She shook her head once, her lips trembling as she straightened up enough to put her head on my shoulder, where she cried. I held her to me, rocking her back and forth gently. Karina joined us, putting her arms around us both.
I kissed Tethys' head and stroked her back.
"I'm so sorry," I whispered.
Tethys just cried harder.
Naturally her sister used this as an opportunity to cop a feel; I felt her hand slide down the back of my trousers.
"Really? Now?" I asked her.
"Have you ever heard the story of the fox and the scorpion? That," she said, squeezing some things she had no right to squeeze.
Tethys managed a laugh and swatted at her sister, who hugged her tighter. And still didn't let go of my bottom.
"If you hadn't come..." Tethys said, "What were you even doing there?"
"I felt the spell. Followed the Revenant," I said.
"Thank you so much, Matty," Tethys said, kissing and nuzzling my neck.
"You're very welcome."
"Who would have done this?" Karina asked, "I'd like very much to pull out their tongues through their rectums."
"Such sweet imagery," I said deadpan.
"Ooh, I like your Sorcerer, Tee, he's witty," Karina said, moving her hand a little closer to the front.
"He's also taken," I said, pulling her hand out of my trou
sers.
"You say that like it matters to someone like me," she said, leaning in.
"Tethys, if she doesn't stop, I'm going to have to hex her."
"Mitts off, Karina, he's mine," Tethys said, sounding a little more like herself.
Karina harrumphed.
"Let's get you inside," I said, "and I'll need to make a few calls. I'm probably about to get arrested again."
Chapter 22
The damage to the club wasn't so bad, really; just a couple of destroyed doors and a slightly dissolved bar. Apparently, Kenton's corpse had come bashing in and made a beeline for Tethys' office, thankfully ignoring everyone else. The various girls had run for cover, and the patrons had looked around gormlessly while one of the most dangerous battle-mages to come out of Britain in the last three hundred years walked right past them unopposed.
She melted a hole through the bar and the metal door behind it, nearly clipping Molly, who dove out of the way like a sensible person (I wish I had the same sense). Thankfully Tethys' sister saw the whole thing happening and got them both out the other back door.
Tethys was unwilling to let go of me as I led the way inside. The main room was empty of patrons, though Molly was still there, looking slightly dazed. Kandi came bounding out from somewhere, dressed in tracksuit bottoms and a t-shirt, her hair mussed from sleep (or probably other things, knowing Tethys).
Tethys let go of me long enough to pull the little redhead into a hug and plant a kiss on her lips.
"I should have known you'd come," Kandi said, all but leaping on me and kissing every bit of exposed skin.
"I was in the area," I said. Tethys smiled and linked her arm through mine, holding my hand.
"Easy, Red, I saw him first," Karina said to Kandi, who looked like she was trying to share my jumper.
"You did no such thing," Kandi snapped back, glaring at the succubus over my shoulder.
"Come on," Tethys said, "I'll start getting contractors in."
"Don't you have a lackey for that? I thought you were running an Empire," Karina said.