The Seventh Age: Dawn

by Rick Heinz

  Phoebe was the least fortunate, as Alexandria had grabbed her by the throat and ran out of the room with the prophet as soon as her pupils dilated.

  Mike met the eyes of the lich. “Impressive” was all Vryce said when he began to raise his hand to cast a spell at the oncoming attackers.

  His ashen world returned into full focus, barren and soulless. The dead will walk again. Mike was an unclean coil filled with rage, hands burning red from heat. Nobody gets what they want today. This isn’t going to stop.

  Gabriel winked at him.

  At this distance, there was nothing the lich could do when Mike took his head clean off his shoulders with a left hook. The impact shattered the lich’s jaw into an array of fragments that scattered across the room as blackened blood exploded onto the window like a shotgun blast. Mike saw the twisted and blackened shadows implode inward on themselves before scattering like the splinters of Vryce’s face.

  His perception of time slowed to a crawl. He felt every tick of a second after his fist had landed.

  Gabriel drew his blade, looking at Mike. He summoned pillars of flame to cut the room in half, dividing the Sons and Daughters from the majority of the creatures in the room. “You had a choice,” he said with his face twisting in anger.

  From the hallway, Phoebe shouted one word. “Run!” Lucy was in midair with her axes. She hit the ground in a tumble and hurled both her weapons into the window, shattering it. The sound of glass exploding caused the rest of the room to take action.

  Mike ducked the fireball that hurled out of Gabriel’s hand and moved to end the fight they had started earlier. An upper-cut that landed squarely into the sorcerer’s ribs gave a satisfying crunch.

  Akira used her pincers to grab Doc and flew out the window before any spell from Cael landed on them. Lucy jumped out the window and turned into smoke. It seemed too late for Phoebe. Alexandria had impaled her fangs into Phoebe’s throat and was drinking her fill. Phoebe’s crew ran for any escape they could find.

  With Gabriel gasping for air, Mike saw his chance. He could stay and fight, putting an end to Gabriel now, or leap out the way Lucy had made. We aren’t so different. I only choose differently. You don’t fit in with these monsters, Gabriel. Join us when you wake up. His duct-taped boot crushed Gabriel’s sword hand, and he kicked his blade across the room just in case.

  He pivoted to jump into the frozen morning air. He paused for a moment to mourn Phoebe. As if she knew his eyes were upon her, Alexandria returned the gaze through the flames and grinned sadistically at Mike. Despite how fast Mike was, she appeared to teleport in comparison as she dropped Phoebe to the ground at Mike’s feet and vanished just as suddenly. He didn’t care as he grabbed Phoebe while she gasped in labored breaths. You’re still kickin’. Don’t die now.

  Mike vaulted through the closest window and out into the night air. He plummeted to the ground, his coat flapping like a broken parachute. This is going to hurt. Mike rolled onto his back and held Phoebe close, hoping she would survive the impact as seconds flew by.

  Unlike in his mortal days, there was no surge of adrenaline, no more gut-wrenching feeling of falling or losing his balance. No heartbeat to flood his ears as he flushed with fear. Just the sound of wind racing past.

  The impact came not from the ground, but from Onyx smashing into their side in midair. Mike opened his eyes and looked into those of Officer Winters. The gargoyle was able to land them with the grace of a forklift that had tiny wings as they crashed into the concrete below near the rest of the Sons and Daughters. Matsen, or Jade as she had become, landed more gracefully. She looked more confused than anything, like she had just woken up from a bad dream. A sense of relief washed over all of them as they realized they had done it.

  “Well, aren’t we just a bunch of fucking superheroes? Look at us saving each other in the nick of time,” Mike said with a giant smile on his face as he slapped Onyx on the back.

  Lucy was the only one who did not share in the immediate celebration. “We need to run. Now.”

  The Sons and Daughters sped off. Mike followed at the rear. He noticed that everyone’s hair started to rise from static electricity. The peaceful snowfall had stopped. Looking up, he saw storm clouds swirling in a vortex. He slowed to a jog, then a trot. He stopped and looked back up at Walsh Tower.

  Gabriel was gasping for life and coughing up blood as he crawled to the tattered remains of Vryce. The room was in a sense of shock, and with the pain from Auburn’s punch, he could not prevent the thoughts of everyone from flooding into him.

  The betrayer let the assassins in.

  Gabriel just killed Vryce. This was planned. Did you see his gargoyle save one?

  I’ve inherited the world. Nothing can stop me now.

  I told you to make enemies of everyone. Now we can be friends. The last thought was clearly Roger Queneco. The pain was overwhelming in both his mind and his body as he reached with shaking hands for the ouroboros pendant that hung around Vryce’s crumbling body in front of him.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Roger said. “The Unification has killed our primus on this sacred day.”

  Gabriel felt life fading from him as his hand clasped the pendant. In an instant, all pain and thoughts of the world faded away into silence. And power. “No. I am the primus now,” he said as he levitated off the ground, his voice echoing from the shadows.

  Gabriel did not need to read the thoughts to know that an entire room of sorcerers and vampires were about to descend upon him and kill him. Blooded sycophants who have no interest in the true salvation of humanity. The thought was feminine and male at the same time. It was his, yet others’ as well. He braced himself for their assault when he heard a sound from Roger.

  Roger clicked his snakelike tongue while twirling his handlebar mustache, with a look of satisfaction on his face. Instead of assaulting him, the room took a knee, thanks to the subtle magic of Roger. “My lord. Vengeance must be served to prove your power,” Roger said as he took a knee.

  The flash of lightning came out of the night sky and hit Mike, bringing him to his knees and flinging the remaining Sons and Daughters farther away. Embers of fire singed Mike’s hair as he rammed his knuckles into the ground to stand back up and look with defiance at the top of Walsh Tower.

  Gabriel D’Angelo floated in the air, one hand raised high above him holding a black cavalry sabre, its green gem shining in the night sky. With his other hand, he grasped Vryce’s pendant. A sadistic look crossed his face as his voice echoed out into the night, loud enough for everyone to hear him. “Slaves, bow to your master. You were created to serve me.”

  Onyx and Jade tried to fight but found themselves giving in and taking flight to protect their master. Mike looked at the rest of the Sons and Daughters; they seemed ready to fight. Phoebe held her hand to Doc’s face to get his attention and shook her head. Mike knew what it meant as they took steps away. I’m okay with going now. Mike took off his coat and threw it to them before an array of lightning snapped out of the sky. Mike’s body burned white as lightning strike after lightning strike rained down from the sky.

  Daneka ran with Phoebe curled up in his arms. They cringed with each impact of a bolt. Mike would stand after each one until his body was burned to a crisp, and even still, he remained on at least one knee with his fists implanted into the ground until his ash flew in the wind.

  “Indomitable. Indomitable.” A voice rang out from Gabriel above the city. Doc gazed up at Gabriel with his heightened vision and looked the creature in the eyes, one white and the other sky blue, and nodded in acknowledgment. Indomitable. Alexandria mentioned that. Gabriel flew back inside the building, Winters and Matsen followed, completely subservient to their new master.

  “Let’s go,” Doc said. The rest of them nodded in silent agreement. Akira held Mike’s coat close to her chest as they ran away.

  CHAPTER 57

  It took hours for them to return to the Second City. The Sons and Daughters saw the black sun give of
f grayish-white light. It looked and felt like a cloudy day, only without the clouds. As a unit, they hurried through the city, their home, a city being born again as the dead ushered in new life, with a healthy dose of shock. Still, after over a week of fighting demons, those within the Second City were ready for anything.

  Lucy ordered the crew around. Even Morris jumped at her command regarding diving supplies, lifting gear up to the skyscraper under construction. Miles above the circuitry of oblivion below. The concrete void. They loaded lanterns, food for weeks, blood, weapons, holy water, and axes. Twenty-four hours. She had twenty-four hours to take action.

  Charcoal lines were drawn under her eyes, an incantation uttered, a spell to grant sight. A hood to shield her face, less the demons and dead notice her. She dipped her fingers in the blood of demons to grant the sensation of touch, vital when wandering lost.

  Her grandfather stood nearby, smoking a cigar. He was there to make amends and tie up loose ends. Putting his arm around her, he walked her over to the edge, out along the steel I beam. She put on Auburn’s coat. He flicked two copper coins off the edge. Lucy turned to face the Sons and Daughters.

  “We’ll be seeing you. Good luck in Texas.” She tumbled into Hades before it was too late.

  Lord of Heaven’s Wrath knelt in the ceremonial chamber, decorated with crimson-and-silver-trimmed banners. Running his fingers through the grave clothes of Lazarus, he admired the beauty of them. Fourteen hours had passed since the dawn of the twenty-first. Yet there was no sign of his return. Lord of Heaven’s Wrath wept.

  All that remained were the signs that prophecy had come to pass, and the black sun had risen. Many neverborn and forgotten gods buried at the ten locations had been consumed by the ritual. Four survived, and within his region was one of them. The Unification had brought the heavens one step closer. One less divide separated all minds. So he prayed.

  Within the Unification, some fractured and broke ranks, showing who lacked the vision to do what was necessary. It illuminated to him those who cared not for the torment that is purgatory, and within his region was one of them. Yet the dead, damned, and demons that flooded into his ranks swelled his armies and legions of dead because of their weakness. The same was true among the loyal death lords. The Unification had brought all within purgatory to the world again, allowing them to see, hear, feel, smell again. So he mourned.

  “What is Lazarus if not but a name?” he asked. “If not but a concept that the Unification can rally behind to complete their work?” Lord of Heaven’s Wrath had many debts to pay. The children of Lilith demanded a union among their descendants. They had been working centuries together for this task. In exchange for immortality and the thirteenth chair, Dr. John C. Daneka promised them the blessing of Lazarus over that union. So he poured the gasoline over himself. For Lazarus was burned by the demons.

  If the dead walked again among the living, a prophecy of Lazarus’s return, yet there was no Lazarus, then perhaps he needed form, someone to take his name, someone to control the Unification. So he wrapped the grave clothes around himself.

  The Unification had committed a great atrocity for the greater good. Yet someone must suffer. One must take responsibility. So he lit the match.

  Lazarus was reborn. In name only.

  The Second City was not a place familiar to Rafiq. Still, he knew he would find his target inside the Drake Hotel. He slid between shadows as he moved unseen past a gathering of damned souls.

  Ever since the morning, the dead were everywhere in the city, going about their ghostly lives as if they were trapped in the last moments of life, only beginning to realize they had an effect on the world again. Everything appeared older than it was, more decayed and blackened than before. Parts of the Drake Hotel looked like they had been built before the great Chicago fire.

  He made his way to a bar that O’Neil’s agents used as a base of operations and climbed a column where he could spy on its inhabitants from safety. His skin changed color like a chameleon to match his surroundings. From his perch, he looked in the room and saw the deformed and rotting vampires giving each other a toast. The bartender was an old man, still human, judging by the blinking of the eyes and the movement of the chest that still took in air. From every bit of info he gathered since being released, this was his mark.

  A vampire wearing a cabby hat and a checkered scarf put out a cigar on the bar even though there was an ashtray right next to him. He reached down and gave a salute to the bartender and pulled out a sign with a small chain on it. Rafiq overheard their farewells and commiserations as he watched the cabby-hat man go to the door and hang a sign that read “Closed.”

  One by one the denizens of the establishment finished their drinks of blackened ichor, turned their glasses upside down, and set them on the bar before giving a nod and a final word to the bartender.

  None of them would rise and complete this tradition until the one before them had left the building. Rafiq waited, ready to pounce if that bartender took a single step to the door. At last Morris poured himself a shot of the black ichor and completed the ceremony himself, pulling the scarf around his face as he exited and locked the door. With only the bartender remaining, Rafiq crawled along the ceiling from column to column above his target.

  The bartender stared at the TV as a final news report was finished before it cut to an emergency broadcast message that would repeat itself. He pulled out a coffee-stained map labeled “Deep-Tunnel Project” and began to study strange arcane markings on it.

  Without a noise Rafiq fell from his perch, his daggers at the ready. The only sound was the decapitated head of the bartender thumping against the wood bar and falling to the floor. A sensation of completion washed over Rafiq.

  He had killed his target. Satisfied with his work, he pulled the white towel from the counter and cleaned off his blades. He had gotten lost in his own cleaning ritual when the door from the kitchen opened. A janitor moved into the room. They took each other in as the janitor looked at the scene, back to Rafiq, then back to the scene.

  “Who are you?” Rafiq asked, unsure why he bothered asking.

  “I’m nobody.” The janitor shrugged. “Just an old man forgotten in time. Who was that?” he said as he gestured to the dead bartender. He placed his hands in his pockets and began rocking back and forth while looking around the room.

  Rafiq wanted to answer, but somehow he wasn’t sure himself. He just knew that was the one Delilah had sent him to eliminate. So he answered the best he could. “I think they called him . . .” Rafiq knew that this was the right answer. There was no need for a name; the person was simply a spec in history. Forgotten already.

  “No matter, then. I suppose I’ll just get a mop and clean it up. Would not be the first time this hotel has had a famous person killed in it. You might want to take your map with you, though.”

  “Yes, you do that. I am done here. Have a good day, sir,” Rafiq said, rolling up the map. He felt that rather than sneaking out, he would simply use the door this time. He took one last look before he walked out into the changing Second City. That man was a dangerous legend? I’m pretty sure the world is going to forget him pretty quick. Maybe it’s the map that’s really important. It leads to some grave under the city.

  Gabriel placed the ouroboros pendant on a shelf full of remaining phylacteries in the sanctum chamber, pain returning to his broken body. He fell to the floor and crawled to a wall. He propped himself up to catch his breath, breath which frosted in the air and tasted like iron from all the dried blood.

  Shadows moved along the floor, and Gabriel was released from Vryce’s control. Being possessed did not suit him.

  “After our conversation in here earlier, how does it feel to claim the position of primus?” Vryce’s voice sounded torn, more fragmented, than when he was alive.

  Suppressing the fear took a second of conscious choice. No matter how hard he tried, however, reading his father’s thoughts was beyond him. It sounded like glass being etched
with an iron nail when he tried.

  Gabriel coughed up blood and tried to follow the shadows as they flitted about. “Anyone could have done that. What if it was anyone else? You should have told me you intended to die like that.”

  “Power is a choice. If you hesitated, then you did not deserve it.”

  “So that’s it? Now I’m trapped leading a society of monsters?”

  “Are you not one yourself? You will either rise to the occasion or you will die. Either way, word will spread quickly of my death. I am free.”

  “But without a body, you’ll just sit in this room. I refuse to be a possessed pawn.”

  “I expected nothing less. You already saved my children. One of them will suffice. You will rule in my stead. I have a hundred years of research to undertake.” A small dagger slid across the room to Gabriel. Vryce’s soul blade. “Both blades of Deus are yours now, but I would not rely heavily upon them for long. We may have use of them outside these walls, and you are not my only child who needs assistance.”

  “I’ve always had a question about these,” Gabriel said as he began to lose consciousness. “If you need these forged by an apprentice and a master, and neither Slade nor Cael have one, who was your first apprentice that made this with you?”

  The room was silent.

  “I was the apprentice. Yet I forgot my master’s name in 1920.”

  As Gabriel’s eyes closed, he saw a girl from the medical clinic step out of the room filled with rugs. She picked up a viola case and left with shadows trailing behind her.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  We’ve come to the part of the book where I, Rick, also known as Richard Heinz or CrankyBolt depending on what bowels of the Internet you stalk, get to speak in my own voice rather than the characters’. I like to imagine who you are or where you’ve been reading this book. Surely, it’s in the loft of a cathedral with epic storms crashing outside while you listen to metal music. Or perhaps it’s curled up under a blanket like a burrito for a few days while you avoid contact with the outside world. I wrote this book on a computer set in the corner of the room while drinking coffee by the truckload late at night. I loved every minute of it. Hopefully you did as well.