by Aaron Crash
He approached the pedestal but stopped. He’d seen enough movies to know he couldn’t just take the Eternity Cannon—which looked suspiciously like a Colt 1851 Navy revolver.
“So who’s guarding the gun?” Jack asked the darkness above. With the glittering minerals in the rock, it was like he was surrounded by the night sky. “Hey! I’m stealing your shit.”
From out of the rock—or was it the sky?—emerged a winged figure, a lot like Gabby, but different in a few key ways. For one, his wings were gray and missing some feathers. A black slime dripped off his wings. He was an old, bald man. Skin sagged from his neck, and he was shirtless, so the sag didn’t end there.
He held a notched sword, rusted and dull, in a wrinkled hand. Golden bracelets dangled from his wrists. A battle skirt made of a dingy gray metal hung to his knees. Around his waist was a golden belt, holding a horn as battered as the angel himself.
“You will stop!” the old-man angel said in a booming voice, which was surprising since Jack figured he would sound like a corpse.
Gabby spread her wings and floated off the floor. Her halo lit up in full glow. “Meriton! What are you doing here? Why aren’t you with your legion?”
Both the lights in the old angel’s eyes and his halo flickered on and off like a bad fluorescent sign. “Gabriella! What are you doing here at the end of the war?”
“If it’s the end of the war, Meriton,” Gabby replied, “we can’t talk about it in front of the mortal and our enemy.” She gestured at the sex demon below, standing with Jack.
The two angels weren’t flapping their wings, yet they were still hanging in midair. It seemed they could levitate at will.
Meriton cast his eyes down. “A denizen of hell? In your company, Gabriella? And aren’t you still in school? Has long has it been? How long have I been in the Cast Away, Gone Astray?”
“I don’t know,” Gabby said.
Jack could feel the waves of energy coming out of the ancient angel, but it wasn’t Nefesh like with Gabby. No, it was Decaysia, and he seemed to be literally dripping with the death energy—that was the slime covering his wings.
“Explain yourself, Gabriella,” the ancient angel ordered.
Gabby raised her chin. “I’m here to save a pure human soul, brimming with Nefesh. We need the Eternity Cannon. We made a deal with the Clockwatcher, and it’s important. And Jack, that’s the man there, isn’t just a human, he’s something else, someone new to the war. Which we can’t talk about.”
Meriton frowned. “And what about that thing of lust, swimming in her foul Ijjinaya. Who is she?”
“I’m a simple country fuck demon,” Bailey sneered. “And, yeah, you wish you could get hard enough to fuck me. I’ve never seen such an old-ass angel in my life. I betcha you’d need some divine Viagra, and even then odds you’d finish are about fifty-fifty.”
“Who is this demonic slut!?” the ancient angel roared.
Unbelievably, Gabby came to the demonic slut’s defense. “She has Nefesh, Meriton. She has the ability to love. I don’t know how it can be, but it’s the truth. Last night, I felt it when she and Jack were together. Things are changing, and I don’t understand it since I’ve only been on the mortal plane for a little over ten months. There’s a ton I don’t know! But listen, Meriton, we need the Cannon to save a wonderful girl.”
“What are human lives compared to the Tempus Bellum?” Meriton shouted. Black spit dripped down his chin. “I have been here an age, in the Cast Away, Gone Astray, and it has been my life’s work to protect the Eternity Cannon. You will not leave with it. I will not let the human have it, nor the demon, nor some Interim Lord. I am the guardian of Eternity! Me! Meriton! My immortality has not been in vain!”
Jack had run out of patience. All this talk about the war they couldn’t talk about? It didn’t matter. Finding Annie mattered. He sped forward and used his shotgun to smack the revolver off the pedestal and out of the light. The revolver didn’t hit the floor, though. It remained floating in the air, spinning slowly, like something out of a video game.
He probably was more right about that than anything.
“No!” Meriton seized his horn and put it to his lips. Bailey spun her war pick around and threw it. The pick struck the horn out of the old angel’s hands.
Meriton was a lot spryer than he seemed. He flew down, caught his horn, then sailed upward.
Gabby soared up after him, but she didn’t get there in time.
Meriton blew his horn.
Chapter Eighteen
THE SOUND SEEMED TO come from everywhere at once.
Jack found himself on his knees, holding his head and trying to get himself to move. Because if he didn’t, that old-ass angel was going to murder him.
Bailey had danced back to avoid the blast, but Gabby had been the closest. She was thrown against the wall, which at the moment wasn’t the starry night sky, but hard stone. She hit the black rock and crumpled, knocked unconscious.
Initially, Bailey bolted to get the Eternity Cannon, but she retreated just in time to catch Gabby as she fell. It was a good catch—the demon caught the angel before sweet Gabby dashed her brains all over the polished stone floor. Both women went rolling across the ground.
Meanwhile, ears ringing, Jack staggered to his feet, stumbled forward, and snatched up the Cannon.
His fingers curled around the worn wooden grip. The metal was hot, almost like it had been held in a gunslinger’s very warm grip.
Again, his stat sheet appeared in his vision.
<<< SEPTUA SANCTUS >>>
Level: 1
Current Kairos: 49/100
Current Corpus: 88/100
Current Nefesh: 73/100
Current Ijjinaya: 91/100
Current Psyche: 95/100
Current Morpheum: 93/100
Current Decaysia: 110/100
Special abilities:
Potential Auxiliary Storage: 0/100
Aeterna Kalpa Olam Hosted Synchronization
Septua Conversion and Transfer
<<< SEPTUA SANCTUS >>>
That horn blast hadn’t just affected Jack’s physical body, or his Corpus. It had also wiped out some of his Nefesh and Ijjinaya. And he wasn’t gaining any Kairos. The real surprise was that the weapon had synchronized with his soul. It had a name, Aeterna Kalpa Olam. He didn’t know what Septua Conversion and Transfer was, but he could guess.
This weapon was like a living thing, full of the Septua energies. Surprised, he stood there, spellbound. It was enough time for Meriton to fly down and blow that horn again.
The concussive blast hit Jack like a truck. He was thrown across the floor, and he couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, and he was pretty sure every bone in his body had been snapped into splinters.
No wonder everyone had been freaked out by Gabby’s horn.
Meriton flew in and landed, walking the last steps, the sword dripping that black goo that was oozing out of the rest of the ancient angel.
Jack was so broken he couldn’t access his Septua Sanctus. He did see something flash through his vision, though.
Current Decaysia: 120/100 - Unsafe
He had more of the mortal energy than his max. That couldn’t be good, and he knew he’d lost a lot more Nefesh and every other energy, including his Kairos, which brought on a terrible headache. He also had the distinct impression that he’d lost precious minutes of his life, kind of like how Kerrata had fed off Evelyn Mundi and reduced her lifespan. He didn’t understand how that worked, but he did know that an angel’s horn was like a spiritual nuclear weapon.
Meriton limped forward, losing a gray feather or two. His eyes and halo continue to flicker a blue-white light, sparking a little every so often. Blowing that horn had leeched power from him. “The war has scarcely begun. But I mustn’t talk about the Tempus Bellum. I must retrieve the Cannon and preserve eternity.”
That was exactly the opposite of what Meriton had said earlier. Was the war beginning or just ending? It didn�
��t matter because Jack just had to win this battle. He reached out with a hand of broken fingers to see if he could reach the Eternity Cannon. He felt the damage across his body. He wasn’t immortal; he was just some guy from Plum Creek, Colorado. That blast had cracked him, and his head was thrumming with pain. Just one of his many, many problems.
What had he gotten himself into? And more importantly, could he get himself out? Not only did he have to save Annie, but he also had his mom and his aunt to take care of. He was the last of the Masterson men, the only surviving son.
Meriton raised his sword to hack off Jack’s head.
But Bailey was there, with her war pick. She caught the sword between the upper and lower teeth of her weapon. She stepped in and rammed an elbow into the ancient angel’s face.
“Get up, Jack!” Bailey shrieked. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
Jack couldn’t get up. He was fairly certain that the horn had snapped both of his femurs like cottonwood sticks. The pain made everything crystal-clear and awful, and he was completely in the moment. He realized, despite the agony, that he missed the feeling of the Eternity Cannon in his grip.
It was too far from him. At least three feet away.
He reached out again. This time, the revolver went clattering across the floor and into his palm. Most of his fingers were broken, but not his trigger finger.
He rolled onto his back and lifted his arm. Was his arm in his shoulder joint? It had to be, since that part of his body was working. He lifted the gun, but Bailey had stepped into his line of fire. She parried a strike from the ancient angel with the shaft of her war pick.
Her tail was in spike mode. She also had her horns. She drove one into Meriton’s shoulder, then danced around, moving away from Jack.
Jack had the shot for only a second, and then the angel flew up into the air. Red blood dripped down Meriton’s chest. He put the horn to his lips.
Jack aimed and fired. It was a good twenty feet away and he was delirious from pain, but his bullet struck the horn out of the grip of the angel.
Meriton flew down, dodging Bailey’s war pick before kicking her in the nose.
The demon went down, clutching her face. She really wasn’t much of a fighter. She cried out. “If you broke my horns, I’ll kill you, you stupid angel!”
Meriton whirled in the air and dove toward Jack.
He was busy trying to pull the hammer back, which would advance the cylinder. His hands were so much broken bone, but he managed to get the hammer back, though it tore open the skin on his palm. That was the least of his worries.
Then he was aiming, point blank, at the angel, who drove his sword into Jack’s side. Given everything else that had happened, it didn’t hurt that bad.
Jack fired into the heart of the angel—or where a human’s heart would be.
Meriton stopped moving, mouth agape, that black spit dribbling from his open mouth and the few yellow teeth still there. For a moment, it was like the bullet had already gone through him and time was struggling to catch up. Blood fountained out of his back along with a good-sized chunk of meat.
Bailey staggered up. Across the way, Gabby was also upright, gripping her sword.
And yet, the ancient angel was glued there in the air, drooling and bleeding, his glowing eyes flickering and sparking. The halo was gone.
A message flashed in Jack’s eyes.
A SURPLUS OF NEFESH AND DECAYSIA IS AVAILABLE!
ACTIVATE STORAGE?
CONVERSION OPTIONS?
Jack knew that an ancient angel like Meriton had to have a ton of Nefesh, though the Decaysia was a surprise. Jack figured he could convert those two Septua energies into other energies, or he could store them in his auxiliary storage.
He hadn’t been given this option before. No, this was because he was the host of the Eternity Cannon, also known as Aeterna Kalpa Olam.
The first thing Jack did was channel the Nefesh into his Corpus—that was his spatial body, and it was basically shattered. He felt the Corpus fill him, and he felt his bones reset, his tissue repaired, his skin made whole. It was painful, but it was a healing agony that was better than what he’d felt before.
He raised his hand and watched as his fingers straightened and grew strong.
Current Corpus: 100/100
He still had more energy to work with, though. He could feel it still in the gun in his hand. He saw that he could reduce his Decaysia by using the Nefesh, which he did. Point by point, the energy of decay left him.
Current Nefesh: 100/100
That left him with a bunch of Decaysia, which he then converted into the rest of the energies, including Kairos, which reduced his headache to a manageable pinch.
Current Kairos: 43/100
Jack flopped on his back and brought the pistol up to his face. “Aeterna? I am deeply in love with you.”
And I love you too, Master, Jack Masterson, son of the Master.
The feminine voice was so quiet, so unexpected, that Jack wasn’t sure he could really trust that he’d heard it. He got to his feet. He had four shots left in the Cannon. How could he reload it? He wasn’t sure. First things first, he had to get it out of the Cast Away, Gone Astray. Then he was expected to give it to the Clockwatcher. That was something Jack did not want to do.
Meriton’s body had lost his feathers and his skin was melting. Soon, only bones would be left. Jack grabbed the armlets and got them off before they got too bloody. He also whipped off the belt. The sword was nothing but a line of rust on the floor. The horn had a good-sized hole in it—the divine bugle would blow no more.
He tossed the armlets to Bailey. “Keep those. We can sell them.”
Jake cinched the belt on his hips.
By that time, Gabby limped over. Her breathing matched the glow of both her halo and her eyes. As she walked, that radiance brightened—she was taking in the last of Meriton’s Nefesh. There wasn’t much left.
A tear trickled down from her brilliantly bright eyes. It created a line of silver on her pale skin. “He was a sad thing. I knew him in his prime, when I was first created to fight for the Divine Legions. He was different back then. This place is cruel, the Cast Away, the Gone Astray.” She sighed. “And the sad thing is? He might have been here for no reason. He stayed at his station when he might not have needed to be here at all. Sometimes the legions are cavalier about where they post their angels.”
Jack thought of the Japanese soldiers on islands scattered across the Pacific. Some of those loyal warriors had spent decades in a war long lost. There was a lesson there—make sure your loyalties were to honorable people and make sure your duty wasn’t some stupid fucking joke.
“Was he at the beginning of the war or at the end?” Jack asked.
Gabby wrinkled her forehead at him. “We don’t talk about the war.”
Bailey was about to say something when the doorway from the future house opened and skeletons in jeans came pouring through. They were armed with big rifles that glowed with red lights.
Their fight wasn’t over yet.
Chapter Nineteen
BAILEY HUSTLED BOTH Gabby and Jack behind the central pedestal. Good thing she did because seconds later, a barrage of bright red bursts of plasma filled the room. The hyper-heated material struck the stone and immediately turned it into slag.
Gabby popped out from behind the pedestal. She put her horn to her lips and let out a blast. The front line of skeletons burst into sticks, and their guns were flung from their undead hands. There were three more behind them. Those other skeletons were growing flesh on their bones, which was a gory sight to behold.
Jack stuck the huge cap-and-ball revolver into the back of his pants. He then scooped up the shotgun and charged forward. He blew the head off one skeleton, while Bailey flung her pick and swept the head off another. Gabby took care of the third monster. She flew in, avoiding the rifle fire, and hacked the skeleton from shoulder to pelvis.
Jack felt the energy of his kill fill him, but it
wasn’t Kairos. These things weren’t Fugs, but something else, full of Decaysia they were leeching from the air. And since he hadn’t used the Eternity Cannon to kill them, he couldn’t convert the energy.
Jack then realized what was happening. The skeletons were collecting the Decaysia from their rooms, unleashed now that the Eternity Cannon had been captured. They would be rebuilding their bodies—from the futuristic jean-wearer to the hunters and gatherers.
And Jack had the distinct notion that the Count Palantine knew that Meriton was dead and that an unlikely trio of human, angel, and demon had snatched the Eternity Cannon out of the Black Tower. The whole place was a trap.
“We’re leaving now!” Jack yelled.
Gabby charged forward and raced across the futuristic room to the suburban houses. Those skeletons wore jeans, boots, and flannel over their dripping, muscled bodies. These things didn’t have the fancy plasma rifles. They only had your more common AR-15s. They managed to get a few rounds off before Gabby blew her horn. The sound blast rolled through them, ripping apart a sofa, and destroying one of the monsters, and blowing the leg off another.
Bailey raced forward, as did Jack, because if they didn’t get in close, those skeletons would take them apart with their assault rifles. Bailey’s war pick ripped muscle out of the chest of one of the skeletons. Jack blew the bloody head off another. Gabby was a whirl of light as she cut apart the last of the monsters.
Jack grabbed an AR-15 and slung it over his shoulder. He’d use it if things got bad, but he figured Gabby would be doing the heavy lifting since she’d spent a billion years training to fight.
They pushed forward into the 1950s house, killing more skeletons, and then into the Victorian house. By this time, the skeletons had advanced to skin and eyeballs, but no hair, teeth, or fingernails. There was blood. It was gross. However, they only had swords and muskets. A big woman with a sabre called the charge. “For the Count!” Well, the Victorian skeletons had vocal chords.