by Jeff Hale
There had once been a large building about a quarter mile past the hill. It was gone, blasted into small bits and pieces that lay scattered in the otherwise empty desert. A small chunk of concrete and a twisted piece of rebar stuck out of the dirt not too far from us. From the building, and headed southwest towards the outskirts of Las Vegas, was a path of sparkling glass formed from overheated sand. Near that path, off to one side, I saw the burnt remains of a car, small patches of blue paint still showing through. About thirty or so feet behind the car was a small clump of Joshua trees and two animals broke from its cover to move slowly towards us. One was a silver lynx and the other was a ginger dingo. Once they were within ten feet of us, they both shifted into human form; the lynx into Kat, and the dingo into Alex.
“Ah, there they are,” Lucien said, as though it were just another night in his club. His calm, given the situation, was getting unnerving.
“What happened?” I asked tensely.
“Um, place went boom,” Alex said, gesturing towards the wreckage.
“I got that, where’s Aerick, was he…?” I didn’t finish, not sure if I wanted to know the answer.
“No. He really wasn’t affected by it, he’s not human anymore. Dammit, Alex, why didn’t you let me try and talk with him?” Kat rounded on Alex, who just shook his head.
“Because, you may be a cat, and you may know lust, but we canines are creatures of anger, and whatever that thing was, was nothing but anger. Like a living incarnation of it,” Alex said, glancing over his shoulder. A shiver went through him.
I glanced at the glittering trail of glass. “Did Aerick do that?”
Kat just nodded sadly.
“So now what do we do?” I asked Lucien, waving a hand at the path.
“If Aerick has become what Alex claims he has become, then we must find a way to calm him. I fear that somehow Merlin’s… secret may have gotten loose. If that’s the case then we don’t know what we may be dealing with. There is no telling what the Movement may have done to him. If his soul has been ravaged beyond repair, then…” Lucien trailed off, his expression grim.
“We’ll have to kill him,” I agreed.
“No! Absolutely not!” Kat argued, anger clouding her face.
I put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her into me. She resisted for the briefest moment, then relaxed against my side. “I know. I don’t like it any better than you do, but we may not have a choice. Would you want to see him like that for the rest of his life, until the fae decided he was too much of a threat and killed him?”
“No, but if I can talk to him…” Kat insisted.
“A chance we’re going to give you,” Lucien stated.
“What?!” Alex and I exclaimed at the same time.
Lucien held up a hand to forestall our arguments. “Katelyn might be able to get through to him where the rest of us might not. There isn’t time to argue any more over it. He’s headed towards the city and who knows what kind of havoc he might wreak if we don’t stop him first.” Lucien pointed in the direction that the glass trail Aerick had left behind was aimed for.
Alex followed Lucien’s hand and then stared, perplexed, into the distance for a few seconds. “Are you sure he’s headed for the city itself?”
“What makes you ask?” Lucien gave Alex a sharp look.
“Just that… I think there’s a Movement for Purity protest building on the edge of town, and it’s kind of in that direction,” Alex told us. “If he knows that Travis and his bunch were all Purity, and he thinks they have Serena…” He shrugged.
“He might head there first to look for her,” I finished for him. I ran down the hill towards my car. “Come on!” I yelled back over my shoulder.
I had the car started when the three of them joined me, Lucien in the front and Kat and Alex slipping into the back. I threw the car into gear and drove through the desert alongside the trail of glass that Aerick had left.
“How fast was he moving?” I asked Kat and Alex.
“Pretty fast. He was in a bit of a hurry,” Kat answered, leaning forward on the backrest.
“Fuck.” I pressed the gas pedal to the floor, glad of the high horsepower engine in the car. Pretty soon I could see the occasional building as we got closer to the edge of town, but they were still far enough from Aerick’s path of destruction that, so far, all he had done was melt more desert.
The path finally ended where the land went from desert to parking lot. The asphalt of the parking lot was melted and warped, curving out around the building ahead of us. The building was about eight stories tall, the glass structure reflecting the manicured palm trees and bushes around it perfectly.
There was a loud explosion of flame from in front of the building. I skidded the car to a stop and we all got out, hurrying towards the road that led past the front. As I rounded the building, I saw Aerick standing in the road and I ran for him. Before I could do anything else, there was another explosion, this time from the building. I could feel the heat of the flames lick my back and I dove in reaction. I rolled onto my back and I could see that the building, or at least part of it, was on fire, the glass shattering and melting from the heat.
I kipped up, then turned to face Aerick. He was walking slowly towards the building with malevolent purpose, fire flickering around him. The fire seemed to behave oddly, almost like electricity as it arced and jumped about him. With a sudden motion he whipped a hand up and another explosion cut the air. This one hurled me forward and I went into a roll to take the brunt of the impact away. I came to my feet closer to Aerick than I wanted to be.
There was an alarm going off in the building and I could hear shouts and screams as people began pouring out of the front exit, but it was the whine of an engine that caught my attention. There wasn’t a lot of traffic out here, and what there was of it had prudently either stopped or gone the other way, but there was a singular vehicle racing up the road towards Aerick with a determined purpose. At the last second, the doors opened and four bodies bailed from the car, letting it hurtle towards Aerick. Aerick didn’t even look at the vehicle as it made its way towards him at reckless speeds. He lifted an arm towards the car and it was suddenly encased in a block of ice. He made a quick motion with the same hand and it exploded into a multitude of sparkling pieces.
I was surprised when I looked at the occupants of the car. I hated to stereotype, but from their dress and the tattoos that two of them were visibly sporting, they were gangbangers. They had probably just been checking out the disturbance in their territory, then decided on the risky move with the car when they’d seen what Aerick was capable of. Why they weren’t running I wasn’t sure, then two of them shifted into Aspect forms, a gator and a vulture. The other two conjured shields similar to mine and Aerick’s, only vastly weaker, and began to jointly cast a spell, making the asphalt around Aerick buckle and rise around him.
Fuck me, they don’t know what they’re getting themselves into! Two shifters and two sorcerers against a single sorcerer would have been an easy overmatch. But against a Sentinel? Especially one lost to rage?
Aerick seemed slightly annoyed as he looked over at the poor bastards. An explosion ripped the street apart and blasted them all away, disrupting the spell, and the asphalt rising around him crumbled at his feet. I spared them a quick glance, but only the gator was moving, and barely at that. Ironically, the only thing the four had accomplished was distracting Aerick long enough to allow people to escape from the Purity Movement center.
Satisfied that they were taken care of, Aerick turned his gaze back to the building. He was close enough to me that I could see his eyes. They were purely flame, and the aura around him was unbearably hot or unbearably cold, I couldn’t tell which. The asphalt beneath him was alternating between freezing and melting, leaving ruts and cracks in it, and smell of it was making me nauseous.
“Aerick! Stop! Please!” Kat called to him as she ran past me towards him.
Aerick’s head tilted slightly. The look he ga
ve her made me wonder at the wisdom of Kat calling attention to herself. I was pretty sure he didn’t recognize her. A slight, malicious grin made its way across his face, a grin that I imagined was similar to what a serial killer might give his victim as he toyed with the poor soul. Then recognition did cross his face but only for a split second, and only long enough to say one word; a name.
“Guin?” he asked, his voice hollow, almost emanating from elsewhere. If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn it was someone else’s voice. He shook his head and the malevolent smile returned.
I froze for a moment, my attention now solely focused on Kat, the name Aerick had said spinning in my head.
Guin? It can’t be her, can it?
I didn’t have much time to further explore the idea as Aerick conjured two blades, both a pale image of Excalibur, one of frost and rime, the other of fire and heat, and charged her. I rushed to intercept him as Kat back-pedaled, and Aerick quickly turned his attention to me.
I was completely unprepared for that move and I barely rolled to the side, catching his ice blade in my ribs for my lack of foresight. I felt the life drain from me in that brief contact and I gasped, trying to breathe. I came up quickly and conjured my whip. I didn’t want to do this, namely because I knew I’d end up dead, but I couldn’t just let him kill Kat without a fight either.
He spun towards me, his blades coming through in a twin horizontal slash meant to open up my stomach. I leapt straight up and over him, twisting my body as I did, winding the whip around me. When I landed I went into a pseudo pirouette to force the whip to unwind from around me while giving it momentum. Once it was free I sent the end slashing towards him. It was a trick I had spent a year perfecting, and it was my best one.
I actually managed to score a hit, but it came at a price. He had taken the hit on purpose. I saw the black line of disintegrated clothing and skin across his back as he turned in towards me, both blades coming in too quick for me to dodge.
All of a sudden a wall of flame erupted between us, making me take a few steps back. I felt no heat from the wall, but from Aerick’s surprised cry, I knew that he had. I heard footsteps retreating from the wall, and I realized that he was running towards the building.
The fire wall vanished, and I could see Aerick getting closer to the front of the building. There were guards outside, the last to leave the building, and they opened fire on Aerick. He made quick adjustments to his trajectory, making himself a very quick, very elusive target. On occasion he would send a blast of flame or ice at the shooters, killing them instantly.
He reached the building and blasted the side of it near the third and fourth floors. He hopped up to the opening and started laying waste to the inside of the building. Luckily, other than the guards, everyone else had fled, leaving the place empty of victims. Several seconds later he turned in place, looked down, and screamed out in primal fury. Fear went through me when I saw his gaze light on the fleeing occupants of the building.
“Aerick! Listen to me!” a voice boomed out. I felt heat, and the smell of a fresh spring rain mixed with sulfur cut through the air. I looked towards the voice and saw the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.
A bird the size of a small house and made of the purest fires stood where Lucien had been. The flames went through the spectrum, from white to yellow, orange, red, and finally to blue. Heat shimmers rose around him, making him hard to see directly, and I felt unadulterated Aetheric energy rolling off of him.
Aerick’s reaction was similar to my own as he stared in shocked awe for several moments. His demeanor got a little calmer, then became suddenly vicious. “Lucien? Why? Why should I? Why shouldn’t I just lay waste to all these hatemongers? Why should they live after what they’re responsible for? Don’t you see, they’re just another cog in Baba Yaga’s plans! I am tired of doing everything the ‘right’ way. My way? They all die and Baba Yaga loses her army! Then no one can hurt Serena!” he growled.
“I have Serena!” Lucien called out.
I blinked, surprised, staring at Lucien closer. He must have teleported her to him because she was cradled gently in his wing, the fire around him leaving her untouched.
“What? How?” Aerick demanded in disbelief.
“Your old friend managed to find her and retrieve her. She also has her tormentor in custody as well,” Lucien assured Aerick. “Serena is safe, you can rest now.”
“No! Where’s Travis? I’ll…” Aerick’s eyes searched the parking lot hungrily.
“Aerick! Please, just stop! I love you too, I’m here for you! See? We’re both here! For you!” Kat shouted, moving closer to Lucien and Serena. She held her arms out to show that she was harmless.
Aerick looked at Kat. This time he seemed to recognize her, but not in the same way he had before. “Kat?” he asked weakly.
She nodded and smiled at him, beckoning to him. He gave the area another quick search, then jumped down from his vantage in the blasted opening. The moment his feet touched the ground, he collapsed to his knees, the crackling energy around him subsiding. Kat hurried to Aerick, and Lucien slowly shrank back to his human form, Serena held close in his arms.
“Lucien, give me Travis. Now!” Aerick snarled out as Lucien and I approached him. Kat had an arm around Aerick’s shoulders, her head close to his, whispering soothing words to him, but I could tell that his anger was only barely contained.
“No. He will pay for his crimes, but not at your hands,” Lucien said simply.
“I have to be the one to do it, Lucien. After what he did to… Serena?” His eyes came up, fixing on Serena where she slept in Lucien’s arms. He reached out a hand as though to touch her.
“She sleeps.” Lucien bestowed a tender look upon her before turning his attention back to Aerick. “She will live, though I should get her, and you, back to the Flame.” He grasped Aerick’s shoulder and the three of them vanished, leaving Kat, Alex, and me to fend for ourselves.
Kat just stared at where Aerick had been kneeling and then she looked up at me, tears streaking her pale face. “Do you think he’ll be all right?”
For a split second I saw someone else kneeling before me, giving me a look of fearful desperation out of vivid blue eyes, blonde hair tangled about a beautiful face. I shook the vision away and held my hand out to help Kat to her feet.
“I hope so.” I let go of her hand as Alex leaned in to wrap an arm about her and she turned to cry into his shoulder. We walked back to my car and I opened the trunk to check on Travis.
Kat took one look at Travis and went from worried to angry almost instantaneously. “Fucking prick!” she screamed, lunging for him. Alex grabbed her arms to keep her from striking Travis.
“He’s out cold, Katie. Save it for later,” Alex admonished. He let her shrug free of his hold and she leaned in to spit on Travis before she stomped around to get into the car.
“Can you help me, Alex? I want to put him in the backseat, in case he wakes up. Last thing I want is this guy waking up and figuring out how to get out of the trunk while I’m driving.” I frowned at the thought.
“Sure thing. I can’t guarantee there won’t be blood in your car if he wakes up, though. I’ve wanted to give this prick a piece of my mind, and my fist, for a while now,” Alex warned as he helped me shove Travis into the backseat. He climbed in the back next to Travis, then his body shuddered and he was suddenly in Aspect looming over the unconscious man.
“Behave, Alex,” I said, and he just gave me a wide, rather toothy, grin that promised misbehavior if Travis should come to.
Half way back to the Flame, the inevitable happened. Travis woke up. He peed in my backseat as he screamed in terror at the sight of Alex’s face inches from his.
“Great, now I have to get my car reupholstered, thanks, Alex!” I griped as I pulled over.
“Glad I could be of service!” Alex said with another smile in my direction. I was beginning to wonder if Alex was developing a bit of a crush on me, although i
t could just be slightly conceited behavior on my part. Not that it mattered, because I had it bad for Kat.
“Get this Unpure freak away from me! Help!” Travis shrieked.
Kat flashed me a smile that was a little cold and cruel, then undid her seatbelt and crawled over the backrest into the backseat. I shook my head and continued to drive, trying not to pay attention to the commotion in the back. I knew that Alex and Kat were having a grand time torturing Travis, and at one point I felt the push of lust rolling off of her. It was focused on someone else, but there was enough leakage that it tugged at what I already felt for her and almost made me stop the car. It took all I had to maintain control of not only myself, but the vehicle as well. I was pretty sure I was going to need a change of underwear though.
A few minutes later I heard a cracking noise that didn’t sound natural and Travis howled in agony. I cringed at the thought of what they were doing to him, but I managed to keep my resolve and stay on the road through all of it. Score one for Merlin’s discipline training.
We finally arrived at the Flame and Kat and Alex escorted Travis inside while I followed. Travis was walking as though he were in pain. One of Lucien’s Cyclopes took custody of Travis once we were all inside and Kat and Alex went with them, disappearing out of sight, to another portion of the club. I took a seat at the bar to wait. A few minutes later, I saw Lucien come from where they had gone, then he disappeared into the alcove that led to the upstairs guest room. A short while after that, he came back down and joined me.
“Serena is sleeping in her room downstairs. Aerick will be down momentarily, I suspect, and he will want to see her. We cannot allow it,” Lucien warned as Lily brought me a Sprite.
“Why not?” Aerick asked, emerging from the same alcove Lucien had.