by HDA Roberts
"He came out of nowhere and took my arms! He blinded me and crippled my friends! My girlfriend is too afraid to leave the house!"
A darker part of me suggested that I should have taken his tongue when I had the chance.
"And you reported this to the Police?" the reporter said.
"Of course! They did nothing. That animal didn't even get a slap on the wrist."
I heard a door slam and thought nothing of it as I was distracted by the man who'd mutilated me as he disparaged me in front of the world (or at least in front of anyone watching the local news at two o'clock on a Thursday afternoon, anyway).
"What do you hope to gain by this protest?" the reporter asked.
"Some accountability," said the slasher, "and maybe some justice."
"Don't worry about it," I said turning to Cathy.
Who was gone.
Bill and I looked at each other.
"She wouldn't..." he said.
Oh yes she would.
I was out the door like a shot.
I soared over the tops of buildings and saw Cathy approaching the crowd, her footsteps firm, her posture rigid. I flew for her before something could happen. I was almost too late.
"There she is! The monster's whore!" said the woman who'd resisted my commands, "Quick, we must save her from him!"
Well, there was a contradictory statement if ever there was one.
A couple of people moved towards her, their hands reaching for her.
I saw the cameraman pointing his lens towards the commotion.
I didn't care.
Thin tendrils of shadow sprang from me and wrapped around the necks of those approaching Cathy, dragging them off the ground and hurling them away to land heavily and badly. Another two started forward, and those same tendrils simply swatted them away, breaking a nose and blacking an eye.
I landed next to Cathy, who looked as furious as I did.
"The next person to come towards her loses a head. There won't be another warning," I said coldly, taking Cathy's hand and pulling her backwards with me.
"Mister Graves, Mister Graves!" said the reporter, "Is there any truth to the rumours that you're a Black Magician? Is it true that you attacked this man and his friends?"
"Before you go any further, perhaps you should check your sources, Sir," I said as politely as I could, there was a camera pointed at me.
There was a thump from behind me before the reporter could follow up. Cathy turned.
"Matty, look out!" she screamed, tackling me out of the way of a descending broadsword.
I turned as we fell, and my shadows caught us and carried us out of the way on instinct.
I turned to see what was happening and nearly panicked.
The Paladin was back.
"Go get Hopkins!" I said, having my shadows get her back onto her feet and out of harm's way.
He looked meaner this time, broader and heavier. The shield was bigger; the sword was longer and thicker. The armour was more bulky.
"You see! The Light's sworn warrior came to destroy the monster!" the same woman. I was starting to hate her.
This wasn't good. There were too many people around; a stray Shadow Lance could kill someone. A stray anything could kill someone. The Paladin was already generating prohibitively large amounts of light. I cast my usual shields and backed away, keeping my Will to hand while I started casting spells that drew water out of the air and into the ground behind me. I cast another spell that started drawing all the ground water in the area to that same patch.
The Paladin leapt at me and I Willed myself out of reach. He plunged into the quagmire I'd made, and I drew all the heat out of the ground, creating a tiny fireball in my hand, which I threw at the man, who was now stuck firmly in a block of muddy ice.
The fireball dissipated as expected, and he started laying about him with his sword, stabbing and tearing at the ice. I used my Will to yank a tree out of the ground and bring it down on his armoured head, over and over until it shattered, and then I started hitting him with the broken pieces. It distracted him, but didn't do any damage.
But it did make him drop his sword, and I used my Will to take it off him again.
Big mistake.
Someone was onto my strategy, obviously, because white lightning flowed along my Will. I screamed as the bolt struck my outstretched hand, charring the skin of my fingers down to the bone before arching up my arm to my shoulder, doing much the same thing on the way up.
The feedback was monstrous. My nose bled along with my eyes and ears as I fell to my knees. My head felt two sizes too small, and I nearly passed out as all my spells simply collapsed, making the feedback worse.
There was a crunching rumble as the Paladin hauled himself from his hole, his armour slightly dented, but otherwise intact as he raised his high over my head.
He was about to kill me. I had no doubt about that. One hit from that sword would have cut me in two, and it wasn't like he could miss while I was an incapacitated lump.
I couldn't do a damned thing about it.
The Paladin tensed, his grip strengthened...
And a boulder the size of a hatchback knocked him flying!
Three blazing little pinpricks of light came lancing in, and a great deluge of water surrounded the Paladin, which was then instantly flash-froze into a block of ice as my three Pixies came to my rescue!
"Run!" Meadow squeaked as the trio came to me, using their powers (which sure felt an awful lot like my powers) to shift my gravity and reduce my weight. They quickly got me into the air and moving under the power of three tiny (but powerful) pairs of fairy wings.
We shot up and away, and I considered what to do next.
With that much feedback damage, using Magic would be agonising, and probably fatal. So I had to run. Thankfully, Pixies were fast!
We still didn't make it very far before a tree to our left vaporised under the force of the Paladin's Light Lance. Good thing we'd been weaving or I'd have had a hole in my torso, or a hole where my torso used to be, the attack had been that strong.
Those bastards at the front gates were actually cheering at this, if you can believe it.
Someone was doing their best to murder a kid right in front of them, and they were cheering.
I think I was crying, I couldn't tell you for sure.
Alright, I was crying. Burns hurt, alright?
Where the hell was Hopkins?
The Paladin threw another attack; Jewel's light flickered, changing from gold to blue for a moment and reflecting the attack harmlessly into the sky.
Melody darted off and dragged another boulder from the ground, this time from directly under the Paladin. He shot briefly into the air as the boulder blasted a crater into the earth under him. Melody then brought the stone down with enough force to shatter into a thousand tiny pieces and pound the knight into the ground.
Who'd have thought those three could be so fierce?!
The Paladin's energy grew and pulsed as he drew in enough light to make the sun dim for a moment. I felt the Pixies start to panic. There was a lot of power being gathered, likely more than they could stop.
The beam came faster than they could dodge...
Hopkins caught it in a portal and returned it to sender. The lance came out of a second portal directly above the Paladin, and set fire to everything for ten feet around the man. Parts of his armour started to smoke. The behemoth shook his head and came on again, his legs bunching for a leap.
Hopkins scoffed and gestured for the Pixies to follow her, leading the Paladin away from where he could harm bystanders (innocent or not. Mostly not). I was still out of it enough that I couldn't really do much more than be carried.
We landed in the playing fields and the Pixies took up their usual positions on my shoulders and head.
"Oh, thank you," I said to them.
"Pfft, silly human," Meadow said, hugging my head, "what else would we have done?"
"How did you know to come?" I asked.
"We know," Jewel said, rubbing her little head against mine, "We don't always know, but sometimes we do. When it's important."
Fairy Magic...
Not complaining, not at all. But still... couldn't they have turned up before the feedback brain damage?
"Matty, are you okay?" Hopkins asked, standing next to me.
"Been better. Thanks for coming."
"Good thing you took my advice this time and called for help," she said smugly.
"Gloating is an unattractive trait, Miss Hopkins," I pointed out, which made the Pixies titter.
She rolled her eyes, "You'd better go, girls. This is Magician's work now. I'll take care of him."
The Pixies nodded, kissed my cheeks and vanished with little goodbyes, leaving the smell of wild flowers in their wakes.
"Away with the fairies," Hopkins said, smiling.
I frowned, but still grinned. She winked back and gestured in the direction of the gates.
"This isn't over quite yet," she said as the Paladin smashed through the undergrowth, sword and shield in hand, coming straight for us. She chuckled and waved her hand. A portal opened, and I swear, lava poured out of it. I'd seen her to that to a Demon, once. I'd almost forgotten about it.
The Paladin screamed as he cooked. Even his armour couldn't last long against that kind of power, and very soon there was another explosion that sent molten rock everywhere. Hopkins covered us in a shield and the little splatters bounced off and sizzled gently in the grass.
She wrinkled her nose as the man inside the armour came into contact with the ankle deep molten rock, screeching fit to burst, it sounded like. She waved her hand and he was propelled clear, landing in a smoking, screaming heap in front of me, naked as the day he was born. Different guy this time. He was about my age, perhaps a little taller, with dark hair and white, blind eyes. He was unblemished, unlike his predecessor. There hadn't been a mark or distinguishing feature on him. Well, before he met us.
Hopkins knocked him out with a simple Hex and came to my side.
"Oh, not again," she said, starting her work on me.
"Ouch," I said.
"Oh, you're fine, don't be such a baby," Hopkins replied.
I smiled as the wounds on my arm and shoulder started to close. My head felt better as her Magic soothed me.
"No, no, no!" said a low and whining voice from the bushes.
My powers were still more or less out at that point, but I recognised him.
Hellstrom.
"Why can't you just die?!" he screamed, "What's it going to take?"
"You did this?" Hopkins asked, her eyes narrowing in hatred.
"Shut up teacher, men are talking," he said, pulling a small tube from his suit. He was pale and drawn, his skin black in patches, his eyes, too. His teeth were sharp and triangular, like a shark's teeth.
"Is he serious?" Hopkins asked, lifting an eyebrow at me.
"He's not the smartest guy," I replied, standing next to her.
"Really?" Hellstrom said.
He pointed the outside of his wrist at Hopkins, put one end of the tube to the inside and pressed something. The top of his arm was ripped apart, spraying blood everywhere. He didn't seem to care (or even notice!).
A shard of blackness came out, too, drawing power from the blood sacrifice, and before either of us could do even the littlest thing, it crossed the gap between him and Hopkins, faster than the eye could see, smashing into her chest.
She gasped and fell to the ground. I caught her and put up a shield, ignoring the twinge in my head (Hopkins did good work, my brain was almost back to normal).
I felt the spell as it went to work, and it moved fast. Just as quickly as it had arrived, it had gone, flaring through her soul and out of a dozen faded lines of love...
No...
That bastard!
It was him!
He'd summoned the Revenant that went after Tethys, and now he'd done the same thing to Hopkins!
My response was instant, and ugly. I reached out with my mind, run through with buckets of my power and simply tore his psyche apart. The puny defence he had in place was easily overwhelmed and I ripped through memory, thought and emotion like a tidal wave through balsa wood, tearing as much of his Magical knowledge away as I could before making him scream in pain as I got to his nervous system.
I found his pain centre and turned everything up to eleven before shutting down his motor cortex and sealing everything off behind mental blocks stronger than most Telepaths could imagine, much less put in place.
He fell to the ground in a boneless, agonised heap, screaming soundlessly at a world he could no longer see, feel or even remember properly.
It was the most horrible thing I'd ever done to a person, and the son of a bitch deserved every agonised second for what he'd done to Tethys, Hopkins and me. He or his family had been behind Puritus. He'd obviously sent the Paladin. Twice. He'd been there the first time, too.
"What happened?" Hopkins said groggily, sitting up.
"I don't want to panic you, but it looks like you got hit by a Revenant Summoning," I said gently.
"A what?" she said, a horrified look on her face.
"I think it might be time to call for backup, now."
She tried to stand, but quickly fell back against me.
"Oh no," she said, "I'm out of juice. That spell drained me."
"All of it?"
I knew just how much energy there was in her Well. That would raise a lot of Revenants.
She nodded, "It's coming back, but not quickly enough," she said, and then a look of utter horror crossed her face, "and... and what if it wakes..."
She stopped talking her hand going to her mouth.
"Who?" I asked.
"Kaden. Kaden Nash. The last Shadow Archon," she said, "I loved him so very much. If he gets brought back..."
There was a rippling, muted boom from the direction of Stonebridge as the spell went to work. I could already see the black clouds.
"We need to go," I said, "we can't be here when they come."
"I can't move us, I'm out, remember?"
"Take some of mine," I said, taking her hand, "Kron shared our Wells a while back, I'm assuming you know how to do that?"
"I can. Matty, are you sure? That's rather intimate."
"Would you prefer to wait and share with whatever's coming this way?" I asked levelly.
"I was just making the point, there's no need to be a dick about it," she said, opening her Well to mine.
Energy flowed from me to her, leaving us both at about half-strength.
"Your Magic tastes funny," she said, licking her lips, "Have you been doing anything strange with those Fairies?"
"No," I said defensively, thinking back on how attached I'd become to the Pixies and Grommit.
"Hmm," she said with a raised eyebrow.
"Do you want to run, or do you want to nose into my relationships?"
The ground shook slightly.
We looked towards Stonebridge. I cast Mage Sight and felt her do the same. Having my Magic in her Well made her actions instantly recognisable to me.
We both saw the same thing.
Power.
Shadow Magic, Black Magic, Death Magic. The three big scary ones.
"Run," she said, "very definitely run."
Chapter 24
Hopkins opened a portal and I stepped through after her onto a hilltop. It was broad and high, with steep sides covered in trees. The plateau was a very flat oval with a single, small ruin at the far end from us.
"Where are we?" I asked, feeling energy start to flow, making my Well fill faster; a lot faster, actually.
"A Place of Power. Our power. The others will certainly know what's happened by now. They'll be coming. We'll just need to hold until they arrive."
"How quickly can the bad guys follow us?"
"If I'm right about who's coming, it'll be between ten and twenty minutes while they raise a small army of cannon fodder."
"When you say 'raise'..."
"Yes, I mean as in grave," she said, trembling.
I took a breath.
"Let me deal with them until the others get here," I said.
"And you expect me to what? Knit?" she asked, trying to smile. It came out shaky.
"Actually, what I'd like you to do is close your eyes and work my shields. Leave me to focus on offence."
"You're serious? What would possibly persuade me to do that?"
"You don't want to see them like that," I said, taking her hand and looking her in the eyes, "It nearly broke Tethys, and that was just one. Don't look, don't listen, just shield us."
"I'm not leaving you to face them alone," she said, resolution in her eyes.
"That's right, you won't, you'll be working our defences, which you're better at anyway. This is as much a psychological weapon as a Magical one. You know that. Let me deal with it. If there's something I can't manage, I'll call you in, alright?"
"Matty... I can't just let you-"
"Yes you can," I said, squeezing her hand, "You've done the same damned thing for me so many times already. Let me do this one thing for you."
She swallowed, "What do you want me to do?"
Hopkins cast a muffling spell around her head and linked her thoughts to mine so she could close her eyes. She stood at my back, her arms around my waist. She cast a pair of Dispel Cannons and we linked our Wells before she cast overlapping shields that impressed the crap out of me. I started casting generators for light, force and heat before calling rings of jagged shadow constructs all around us and making them permanent.
We waited.
It didn't take them long. Hopkins had guessed a minimum of ten minutes; we got five. I felt Space Magic beyond the lip of the hill and I recast Mage Sight. I gulped.
What is it? she asked.
Unless I'm very much mistaken, Zombies. Lots and lots of Zombies, I replied.
Not Revenants?
Not yet.
You can take Reanimates, no problem. Just remember headshots.
I've watched every Romero movie ever made and had the horrific nightmares to prove it. I know how to kill a Zombie.