by B. J. Keeton
Chapter eighteen
“I’ve never killed anyone before.”
Ceril didn’t know how to respond. The correct answer was probably not I have. You never really get over it, so he just looked at Saryn, sitting in front of him dumbfounded and in shock. It had been at least two hours since they had shot and killed the angels that had kidnapped them, and Saryn and Chuckie hadn’t made any progress toward coping with what had happened.
Ceril wanted to say something, needed to say something, but without the right words, all he could do was smile wanly at her.
Chuckie said, “Me, either, Saryn. Not really. I’ve shot at people, done a lot of simulations and combat exercises, but what happened with those angel things…” He paused and looked at his gun. “It was them or us.”
“Don’t recite clichés at me, Chuckie.”
“I’m not. I’m just saying that it really was them or us, you know? They came out of nowhere, snatched us up like we were nothing and flew off with us. I don’t think they were taking us home to meet their parents.”
“I know,” she said. “I know. It’s just…How did you deal with it, Ceril?”
Should he answer her? What could he say? “I, umm, what?”
“I know you don’t like talking about Ethan Triggs, Ceril. I know, and I’m sorry I brought it up, and this isn’t even close to the same situation, but how did you deal with, you know…” Her voice trailed off.
“Killing someone?” Ceril finished for her. “Taking someone’s life? Watching and feeling another person bleed out in front of me?”
“Yeah,” said Saryn, sheepishly.
“It wasn’t like this. Not at all. Not even remotely. I don’t…feel bad for those angels. Chuckie’s right: they were going to hurt us. But they were still people, or we have to assume they were, just like Ethan. How did I deal with it? Years of beating myself up, trying to repent somehow for what I did, trying to take it back. I worked my ass off on the Sigil because of it. I’ve had Roman and Bryt breathing down my neck ever since, pushing me to work harder, think faster, fit just one more class into my schedule.
“And you know what? I did. I worked harder. I thought faster. I took every class and training session and Instance mission they gave me. I never complained. Not once. At least not to them. I couldn’t. Everything I’ve done in the last five years has been to try to make up for that one second of lost control. That one second where this,” his Flameblade appeared in his hand as he spoke, its golden blade flaring brighter than it ever had, “pretty much started to dominate my life.” He bounced the sword from one hand to another, which made both Saryn and Chuckie shy away slightly.
“So how did I deal with it, Saryn? The best that I could.” The Flameblade disappeared and with it, the eerie illumination that had surrounded the trio.
“I-I’m sorry, Ceril.”
“Me, too,” he said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“Yeah, you did, boss. It’s cool,” said Chuckie. “You’ve probably had that bubblin around inside you for a while. I don’t want you to think we’re making light of what happened to you. It’s just that…we don’t know how to handle this.” Chuckie’s shoulders sagged as he said it. “All the training in the world can’t really prepare you for when you actually have to pull that trigger.”
Ceril stood up and looked around him. It was dark, and by his count, they had spent more than two hours hunkering under an outcropping a short walk from where they had shot and killed their winged kidnappers. “There’s nothing I can say that will make any of this better,” he said. “I kept myself busy for the last five years so I could keep my mind off what happened. And given our current circumstances, I think that’s the best thing we can do here, too. So you want my advice on dealing with this? Push it down until you have time. Right now, let’s see if we can find Harlo and Swinton.”
Saryn stood up and brushed herself off. “You’re right, Ternia. Thanks.”
“Yep,” he said. “Chuckie, it would make sense that Harlo and Swinton would come to find us, right?”
“As much as anything, yeah. They probably followed the angel guys’ path into the mountains.”
“So if we’re looking for them, then we need to backtrack. Which way is that from here?” Ceril knew which direction it was. He could have just given the order to move out and start walking, but he wanted to make sure Chuckie and Saryn felt needed, like they were able to contribute to something other than killing of their kidnappers a few hours prior.
Chuckie pointed. “That way, I think, boss. May take a little winding around if you want to head directly back, though. I don’t think these mountains have anything straight through em.”
“Thanks, Chuckie. Let’s try to make it as quick as we can to the plains. We can always pick up their trail from there if we don’t meet up with them,” Ceril said. “Saryn, what do you think the odds are that Harlo and Swinton went into the mountains before dark fell?”
“Oh, they’re in a cave somewhere, Ternia. After the day we’ve had, there’s no way they’ll be anywhere out in the open.”
“Lovely,” Ceril said. He was thinking the same thing, but he hoped that someone else might be able to convince him differently. “Then keep your eyes out for anything that might indicate where they are, and listen in case they’re talking or making enough noise that we can find them that way. If they’re in a cave, or even under an outcropping like this one, it’ll be easier to walk by and miss each other entirely. We can’t have that. Chuckie, you take point.”
“Always, boss.” It wasn’t insubordination or even sarcasm. Chuckie was simply the best person to have leading the squad, and they all knew it. Ceril took up the rear, ready to summon his Flameblade at the first sign of trouble.
***
It made sense, when Ceril thought about it later, that the angels would be waiting for them. Just moments after the trio had set out from their hiding spot, four purple-skinned men descended out of nowhere directly in front of Chuckie. The winged men stood stock-still, at perfect attention, shoulder-to-shoulder, and blocked the rocky path Ceril and his companions had been using.
Chuckie reacted first by dropping to one knee and simultaneously grabbing his rifle. He cocked it and yelled, “Saryn, get down! Ceril, cover me!”
Saryn listened immediately. She dropped to a crouch and quickly surveyed her surroundings. She lunged for a rock a bit to her left, did a somersault, and sprang forward to land with her back to the rock, safe from the winged quartet—even for just a moment.
Ceril heard Chuckie call for cover, and he instinctually called for his Flameblade. The problem with that approach, however, was that their assailants were far enough away that there was no way he could do any good with a melee weapon. So, as soon as the sword materialized, he let it dissipate, and instead reached for his sidearm. He started to fire as soon as it was lined up with the attackers. His fire sprayed in a cone in front of him, striking the large, purple men blocking their path.
At least two of his shots struck each of the angels. He doubted any of them would die from his attacks—he had not been able to aim precisely enough for that—but they would suffer enough wounds that they should be slowed. As Ceril fired on the furthest left angel, Chuckie fired on the furthest right. They hadn’t had time to coordinate, but because they had been trained by the same people, their fighting styles meshed well enough that Ceril’s cover fire kept Chuckie from getting killed while he did the real damage.
Or he should have done the real damage.
Ceril and Chuckie both stopped firing when they realized that they were having no effect on the angels in front of them. Stoic as statues, the winged men shimmered slightly as the bolts struck their skin. Even Chuckie’s more powerful rifle shots weren’t affecting them.
“What’s going on, boss?” Chuckie demanded. “These guys should be meat by now, like the others were.”
Instead of responding, Ceril charged at the quartet. He holstered his pistol and summoned his Flameblade, this ti
me letting it fully materialize and flare purple-green. If the creatures were surprised by the appearance of the weapon, there was no indication. They were as stoic as ever. It was as though Ceril and Chuckie’s barrage against them had never happened, nor was there a determined young man running at them with a flaming sword.
Their disinterest almost made Ceril angry. He pushed himself to run as hard and fast as he could, while he hefted the newly materialized sword in both hands. He could feel himself automatically distribute its weight in his hands as he lifted both arms for an overhead attack. Sure, such a move would leave him open to a counterattack, but the four creatures had made no indication they were going to fight back, anyway.
When Ceril was close enough to strike, he brought the weapon down hard on the left creature’s shoulder. Or he should have. Instead of cleaving through sinew and bone, pushing the blade down through whatever resistance the purple man’s torso would have, Ceril found himself rolling forward on the ground, his weight suddenly and awkwardly distributed.
After maybe a second, he noticed that he no longer held his Flameblade. He found his bearings and looked at the four purple people he had been trying to attack. They had moved, but barely. Instead of a disinterested forward stare, all of their heads were cocked downward and they focused on him.
“Boss?” Chuckie’s voice sounded distant. “You okay, boss?”
“I think so,” Ceril mumbled as he stood up. He locked eyes with the angel he had tried to split with his Flameblade. “What did they do to me, Chuckie?” He paused and then said to the angel, “What did you do to me?”
“All I saw was your sword go poof and you rolling on the ground. I couldn’t tell nothin else from back here.”
“Me, either, Ternia,” Saryn called. “You just kind of…fell.”
“What did you do to me?” Ceril asked again. The angels just stared at him, their heads still slightly cocked to the side. If he could just take them by surprise, then maybe they would all get out of this okay. He was scared, mad, and frustrated at the situation, but those feelings wouldn’t do any good unless they were focused. He tried to focus them on the one thing he needed more than anything else: his Flameblade.
He thought about the weapon, saw it in his mind, could almost feel the weight in his hand. He visualized the golden blade appearing out of nowhere in his hand, and he imagined it slicing that smug indifference off those purple faces. Ceril zeroed in on the fear, anger, and frustration and did his best to make his visualization real, to call his Flameblade back from wherever it had disappeared to.
Nothing happened.
He swallowed hard and tried again, but still, his hands remained empty, and those purple faces stared at him. Mocking him.
“You got a plan, Ternia?” Saryn called. “This stand-off is getting kind of tense.”
Ceril ignored her. Of course, he didn’t have a plan. His plan had been simple: kill the big purple things with wings. When that plan failed, he was out of ideas.
“Yeah, a plan would be awfully nice right now, boss. I don’t bet these fellas’ll just stand and wait much longer.” A second later, Chuckie continued, “Want me to shoot em again?”
“No,” Ceril said. “I don’t think they want to fight.”
“What gave you a crazy idea like that?”
“The fact that we’re not dead yet.”
“Point taken, boss. But what do we do?”
Then, Ceril had an idea, and he hoped it wasn’t going to get him killed. He hoped that he wasn’t about to get Saryn and Chuckie killed even more. Without a word to his teammates, Ceril drew his pistol and threw it on the ground in front of the angels.
“Ternia? What are you doing?”
Ceril kicked the pistol to the far right of the group and walked to within a few steps of the angel he had tried to cut in half. He knelt down in front of the creature and looked up. “I surrender,” he said.
***
“My, my, boss, what a nice little cell you’ve found for us. Think you might be able to rustle us up some shackles, too?”
“I’m sorry, Chuckie,” Ceril said, “but it was the only option we had.”
“Like hell it was. We killed two of them easy.”
“Yeah, we did. We basically put guns in their mouths when we killed them, too. Did you also happen to notice that any time we’ve shot at them from a distance that they’re damn near invincible? We had no choice. I had no choice.”
“There’s always a choice,” Chuckie muttered. “You just didn’t want to make it.”
“No,” Ceril said. “I didn’t. After the four of them stood there like we’d never unloaded on them, I have to say I was a little overwhelmed. And when I tried to cut one of them in half with my Flameblade, what then?”
“You fell down.”
“Yes, Chuckie, I fell down. Without my weapon. When I got close enough to the things to attack, my sword disappeared. I couldn’t summon it back, either.”
“Did you try?”
“Chuckie,” Saryn said, “be fair.” Chuckie glared at her.
“Of course I tried, Chuckie. I’m trying right now. Somehow, they’ve cut me off from my Flameblade, and that’s never happened before. Since before we boarded the Sigil, it was just kind of…there. Now, I can’t seem to feel it, to find it anywhere. I’m cut off from it.”
“I didn’t even know that was possible,” Saryn said.
“Me, neither,” Ceril agreed. “So when I realized that I was cut off, Chuckie, and the fact that they were—let me reiterate—damn near invincible, I decided the best thing we could do was surrender. Because they obviously weren’t there to kill us.”
“Whatever,” Chuckie said. “Like I said, it’s a nice little cell you found for us.”
Ceril looked at Saryn, who just shook her head—the universal signal for it’s not worth it. “You know, it actually kind of is when you think about it.”
“I was being sarcastic, Ceril.”
“Oh, I know that, Chuckie. But you’re right. I mean, it’s really not so bad.” Ceril stood up and began to pace the perimeter of their makeshift cell. It was really just a stone fence these days—at one point, it had probably been a hut or home of some kind, but time had been unkind to the structure. “When’s the last time you were held prisoner in a cell with no walls or ceiling? We have plenty of room to walk around, the weather’s actually not that bad since we have the breathers for the smell, and the sky is beautiful.” He craned his neck up and stared at the stars. He wasn’t wrong; the stars in this Instance were purple pricks of light in a sky swathed in faint green swirls of clouds and cosmic dust even further away.
Not so easily impressed or manipulated, Chuckie said, “All I see is a kidnapping angel on every side of me, and no roof over my head. What are we going to do if it starts to rain again, huh? We still don’t know if it’s acid rain.”
“Conjure a roof, then, an umbrella or something. There’s not a thunderhead in sight, Chuckie. I don’t think it’s going to rain. Relax.”
“I don’t mean to sound like I’m on Chuckie’s side, Ternia, but what’s gotten into you? How can you see this situation as being a good thing? We’re being held prisoner.”
Ceril shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just have a feeling that if they were going to hurt us, we’d be hurt already, and since Harlo and Swinton aren’t here with us, there’s a rescue party out there coming for us.”
“Maybe,” Chuckie said.
“Definitely,” Ceril corrected.
Chuckie stood up. “Enough of this crap. I know you’re the boss and all that, but this is garbage. We’re getting out of here. I’m getting out of here. Before it’s not my decision to make.” He walked quickly over the broken ruin that made the cell’s boundary, and the second his foot hit the ground outside, the closest guardian angel whipped his hand around and slammed it into Chuckie’s sternum.
Chuckie fell to the ground, and all the air left his lungs. He wheezed as he stared at the angel, who had alread
y resumed his previous, stoic position. Chuckie charged again, this time getting both feet over the broken foundation before being knocked back inside where he was supposed to be.
“Okay, then,” Chuckie said, “maybe I’m not.”
Ceril suppressed a smile and sat down beside Chuckie. “Look, I know it’s not ideal, being kept inside what’s left of an old building like we’re chickens in a pen, but it’s where we are. I have a couple of ideas on how to get out of here, but I’m going to need some time to work them out. In the morning, I think we’ll have a better chance at it, anyway. We get away right now, where do we go?”
“Out there.” Chuckie waved his arm in an arc.
“Which is where? We have no idea where we are, and in case you haven’t noticed, Chuckie, this Instance hasn’t been the friendliest place we’ve ever been. So I’m asking you as a friend, not telling you as your commanding officer, to give me until morning to work out some way for us to get out of here.”
Chuckie grumbled something incoherent, and then lay back and stared at the sky.
“Chuckie? What was that?” Ceril asked.
“Fine,” Chuckie said. “But we’re getting out of here in the morning. One way or another.”
“At least we don’t disagree on that.”
Chapter Nineteen
Damien was hungry. The one piece of fruit he had eaten a few hours ago was long gone. Once the elevator dropped him off at the third-floor dining hall, the smells of so many different foods wafting over him made his stomach rumble. Aside from the fruit, he had scavenged here and there but had not eaten a full meal since the night his home had been invaded.
“Visitor, please enjoy your time at the Ennd's Academy dining hall. May I recommend…” The voice trailed off as Damien walked quickly out of earshot. He had no intention of getting food recommendations from something that could not eat.