by Jake Bible
“I got this,” Coins said.
It was a quiet, casual voice, but it easily carried to Xue’s ears. There was a deep intensity to Coins’s tone that told Xue that caution had been cast aside and the G was in full protection mode.
“Elisa,” Xue shouted and the woman skidded to a stop in the grass, turning her attention on him. Her eyes were wide with panic and blood covered most of her shirt front. Xue looked inward and realized that he no longer felt the spiritual presence of several wards. “To me! Now!”
Elisa didn’t hesitate. She changed course, sprinting to Xue as Coins passed her, his eyes locked onto the cathedral doors, not seeing her at all.
Coins was almost to the doors when Hannah came running out. She slammed into the G, knocking him off balance and sending him tumbling down the stairs. She lost her own balance in the collision and fell painfully down the steps to land in a heap in the grass. Before Coins could regain his feet, a grubby man, a stranger, burst from the doors, brandishing a length of metal, and took the steps two at a time as he closed on Hannah.
“No,” Xue roared and the man paused long enough for Hannah to get up and start running across the sanctuary grounds.
Elisa reached Xue and turned to see what he was staring at. Before she could say a word, or Xue could move to intercept the attacker racing after Hannah, explosions rocked the air.
Xue spun about and looked up as mortar after mortar exploded in the sky. The possessed’s use of artillery wasn’t what surprised him when he looked to the sky. It was the two Gs flying straight for the sanctuary grounds. The one in front he did not recognize, the one in back he did.
“What is he carrying?” Elisa asked.
“I do not know,” Xue replied as more mortars exploded around the two flying Gs.
“Who is that?” Elisa asked. There was a scream and she spun about. “Hannah!”
Xue was about to tear his eyes from the incoming Gs when a mortar took out the strange one, sending the large grotesque plummeting short of the sanctuary grounds. Then another mortar rocketed up into the sky toward Morty. The G twisted his body so his back could take the brunt of the explosion.
He fell. Straight at the sanctuary grounds. Xue had no idea what Morty held wrapped in his arms and wings, but it must have been important to willingly take a direct hit from a mortar shell. Xue pumped his legs and raced toward where he thought Morty would land.
Then he slid to a halt, cutting deep furrows in the grass and dirt. As Morty crossed the sanctuary grounds’ protective barrier, a bright light flashed. Xue knew what that light meant. Morty had brought a possessed vessel into the sanctuary. Morty had destroyed the protection around the entire grounds. In one flash, the land between the fence and the cathedral was nothing more than an overgrown meadow.
“Back,” Xue roared as he came to his senses and raced to where Morty had crashed into the earth. “Elisa! Get back inside. Now!”
Then, from out of the tree line, came the possessed. Thousands of them charged straight for the iron fence that no longer held the magic of protection.
PART THREE
The Quarry & The End
1
THE AGONY OF the breach ripped through Artus like a seizure. His stone body shook and almost became unmoored from its perch as magical feedback tore through him. He wanted to scream, but he could not, would not. There were wards all around him, standing below him, racing into the courtyard to seek his protection and comfort.
“Stay calm,” Artus said despite the pain that flowed through him in waves. “You are safe inside the cathedral.”
“What happened?” someone asked.
“What’s going on out there?” another cried.
“Who are you?” a third said as three men ran into the courtyard from the far side opposite the nave’s archway. “What are you—”
The ward, a man in his late fifties, never finished his query. His throat was laid open with a stubby blade and his body shoved out of the way so the three men could get at the rest of the wards.
“Stop! Stop this,” Artus yelled.
His words held power and the three men slowed as if they were running through clear molasses. But as soon as Artus’s words stopped echoing in the courtyard, the men were able to move at full speed again and they proceeded to cut down anyone and everyone in their way.
“No,” Artus shouted, but it did not stop the men.
A woman screamed and clutched at her belly as her intestines spilled out through her fingers. A boy of ten was slammed into a stone column, his head cracking open like a piece of fruit. Another woman, in her early thirties, tried to flee from the courtyard into the nave, but a blade whooshed through the air behind her, embedding itself halfway up her back. She stumbled and fell onto her face, still and lifeless.
Artus could do nothing. The bloodshed ripped at him. He felt every slashing blade cut, every crunch of bone, every life that was cruelly, brutally snuffed out. Artus’s very soul screamed to go on the attack, but that was not what he was made for. And even if he was, he knew he didn’t have the energy to do much of anything.
The sanctuary grounds had been breached. Somehow, a possessed vessel had been carried through it. All of that magic, all of that energy that he had been pouring into the protective barrier for six years was lost in the blink of an eye. None of the power was returned to him. It was simply gone, returned into the infinite that made up the universe.
Which meant he had to focus all of his remaining power, and concentration, on the cathedral itself. As long as its walls stood, he could hold off the possessed hordes, which he knew were even then rushing the fence and preparing to storm the cathedral.
He had been carved to protect, not fight, and that was what he would do.
Except, as he watched the bloodshed play out below, Artus wondered who would be left to protect. So much killing, so much murder. And not by demon hands, but by the free will of unpossessed humans. Traitors and collaborators. Fools who had been made promises that Artus knew not one of the demons would ever honor.
Blood and bodies quickly covered the courtyard, and then it was over. The wards who had come to Artus for safety and protection had instead found death and dismemberment.
The three men wiped their blades on their dirty, soiled jeans then turned as one and looked up at the stationary gargoyle. They snickered and pointed, making crude comments about what they’d do to him.
“You may try,” Artus said. “But you will fail.”
“That so, ugly?” Jon said as he joined the three men. “I have a feeling you may be wrong on that.”
He held up his short pipe that was capped on both ends. He untwisted one end and let the metal cap fall to the ground. Normally, it would have made a loud clatter against the courtyard stones, but it only thudded dully as it landed in a thick pool of blood.
Jon tipped the pipe on an angle and a thick rod of black glass came out. He smiled up at Artus as he gripped the obsidian in his right hand, tossing the empty pipe away with his left.
“Get me a ladder,” Jon ordered. None of his men moved. “Get me a fucking ladder!”
Two of the men took off in different directions while the third stayed behind Jon, his eyes turning to the obsidian that Jon was waving around.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” Jon said. “This kind, old man gave it to me.”
“That was not given to you by any man,” Artus said.
“Oh, it wasn’t?” Jon replied and shrugged. “Well, golly gee, he sure looked like an old man. I mean, what else could he have been?”
“What did they promise you?” Artus asked.
“More than you could ever offer,” Jon said. “Freedom.”
“There is no such thing amongst the demons,” Artus said. “You have been tricked and lied to. When you have served your purpose, you will be ta
ken over like all the vessels have been before you.”
“That right, Jon?” the man behind him asked. “You said you had a contract.”
“Shut the fuck up, Louis,” Jon snapped. “This old drain spout is trying to mess with your head.”
“You signed a contract?” Artus asked and chuckled softly. “You must know that it isn’t worth the paper it was written on.”
“Wasn’t written on paper,” Jon replied. “It was written on the back of some dead chick. Peeled and stretched so that the ink would show up right nice.”
He laughed and brandished the obsidian up at Artus.
“The best part was that, instead of signing on the dotted line, I signed on her tramp stamp,” Jon said, laughing harder. “One of those curlicue looking tats that sluts get when they want to be taken from behind. I signed right there.”
“You signed a lie,” Artus said.
“No, pretty sure the guy said her name was Holly,” Jon said. “Or Molly. Something like that. He said knowing her name was important, but what the fuck do I care about some dead chick’s name? I was all about making a deal and not running anymore.”
“You could have come here,” Artus said.
“I did,” Jon replied as one of his men returned with a rickety-looking wooden ladder. “What the hell is that?”
“All I could find,” the man said, almost slipping in the blood as he hurried over to Jon with the ladder. “Here.”
“Don’t give it to me, moron,” Jon said. “Set it up over there so I can climb up and kill this stupid gargoyle.”
The man hurried, almost slipping once more, and leaned the ladder up against the stonework directly under Artus.
“The guy who hired me says this is gonna be quite a light show when I cut you,” Jon said, walking toward the ladder. “So, even though it’s kinda dark in here, I’m gonna wear these.”
He slipped his glasses down from on top of his head and settled them on his face.
“I will offer you one more opportunity to repent and reject the evil that has been forced upon you,” Artus said.
“You sound exactly like my old parole officer,” Jon said as he reached the ladder. “I killed his ass too.”
2
OLIVIA’S EYES WERE like fiery jewels as she lashed out with the edges of her stone gown. A man screamed, clutched at his left thigh, screamed again, clutched at his right thigh, then didn’t stop screaming as his legs from mid-thigh down separated from the rest of his body. Olivia whipped her gown out once more, flicking the blood clean, sending droplets flying against the wall.
“That’s quite the skill,” Antoine said, another man’s head in his hands. He wiggled his fingers against the head’s slack face. “I did it the old-fashioned way. Claws.”
Olivia held up a hand and cocked her head like she was listening to a far-off whisper. “There is another roaming the cathedral. Two more in the courtyard.”
“You tapped into the sanctuary even though Artus told you not to,” Antoine stated.
“Yes,” Olivia said. She glanced up at the vaulted ceiling of the corridor. “Roan is with me, as well.”
“Well, you’re in good company,” Antoine said.
“I need to get to the courtyard,” Olivia said. “They will try to harm Artus.”
“Good plan,” Antoine said.
“I need you to find the wards who are left alive and get them somewhere safe,” Olivia said.
“Tunnels?” Antoine asked. “They’re pretty secure.”
“Not anymore,” Olivia said and nodded at the head in Antoine’s hands. “How do you think they got in?”
“Oh, right,” Antoine said and let the severed head fall to the floor.
“Find the wards and send them to Nissa and Tessa,” Olivia said. “They were going down to the armory. That will be the safest area in the cathedral.”
“You said I got fight in me, and you’re right, O,” Antoine said “I can take the rest by myself.”
“It is not the men I am worried about,” Olivia replied. “The sanctuary grounds have been breached. Only the cathedral stands. The siege has truly begun.”
“Well, ain’t that a kick in the shorts,” Antoine said.
“Find the wards, take them down to the armory, barricade yourselves inside and do not open up for anyone except a fellow grotesque,” Olivia said. “Understood?”
“Understood,” Antoine said with a bow.
“Good,” Olivia said. “Now go.”
Antoine was already sprinting away before the last word had passed Olivia’s lips. She turned and hurried from the bloody corridor, hell-bent on reaching the courtyard before it was too late.
But she paused as she saw the infirmary door slam shut. Highlander. He wasn’t safe in there.
“Highlander,” Olivia called as she rushed the door and shoved it open.
A strange man was moving toward Highlander, a hunk of sharp metal in his hand. Highlander was backed up against a table, a scalpel held out and slashing the air in front of him, desperate to ward the man off. The man only laughed.
“I do not find homicide funny,” Olivia said. The man spun about and his eyes went wide. Then they narrowed and he doubled his grip on the sharpened metal and grinned at Olivia. “Put that down before I kill you.”
“You’re kinda pretty for a monster,” the man said. He had two teeth, one on top, one on the bottom. “Whatcha look like under that concrete dress of yers?”
“This,” Olivia said and her body became blue fire and pure rage.
The man screamed as the blue flames sprang from Olivia’s body and engulfed him. He was a mound of crisp skin and smoking flesh before she had taken three steps toward him.
“You can do that?” Highlander asked, coughing from the man smoke that wafted into his face.
“I can do more than that,” Olivia said.
“That was neat,” Highlander said. He spat on the smoldering pile of dead man. “Where’d he come from?”
“That does not matter,” Olivia said. “What does matter is I need to get you somewhere safer than in here.”
There was a scream from out in the corridor.
Olivia cocked her head. “That was Kimmy,” she said.
She grabbed Highlander by the arm and he started to freak out, but she pulled him along so fast he had to use all his concentration not to trip and fall flat on his face. She let go when they reached the corridor. Not because she wanted to, but because an iron pike was jammed into her belly.
“Oh, shit,” Gil cried as he let go of the pike and jumped back. “I thought it was gonna be. . . . I mean. . . . Oh, shit . . .”
The stone around the spike cracked and crunched as Olivia slowly pulled it free. She let the pike clatter to the floor then put out a hand and steadied herself against the wall.
“Why?” she asked.
Rider and Joanie stood directly behind Gil, mouths wide open in shock and surprise. Kimmy was on the floor, her hand to her cheek, the skin swelling fast. Brian was turning the corner and running to them when he stopped, his arms full of makeshift weapons. The junk fell from his grip as he saw Olivia standing before the others and Kimmy on the floor.
“What the hell, Gil?” Brian yelled. “What are you doing?”
“He thought I’d come out because Kimmy screamed,” Highlander said, his eyes widest of anyone’s. There was also something else in those eyes. Something that Gil had only glimpsed before. “They thought I’d help her because I do that. I help people. They thought they could kill me and no one would know.”
Highlander looked around the corridor and shook his head.
“Chaos,” he said, backing toward the infirmary door. “It’s all chaos. He wanted to use the chaos.”
“You’re creepy as hell when you
do that talking-to-yourself thing,” Gil said. “One reason you need to die.”
“Gil,” Joanie gasped. “You said you were only gonna scare him so we could hide in there.”
“Yeah, well, I was improvising,” Gil said. He glanced down at the iron pike at Olivia’s feet.
“If you would like to try again, feel free,” Olivia said as the wound in her stone belly sealed up without even a trace it had been there. Her eyes were blue flame once more and everyone except for Gil took several steps back. “Go ahead, Gil. Pick it up and try again.”
Gil looked like he was going to, but before he could even bend his knees, the pike was snatched up and embedded in his throat. A strangled, bloody screech leaked out around the metal as he collapsed onto his knees.
Everyone screamed. Hands went to mouths, eyes followed the path of the pike up to the person holding it.
Highlander let go of the pike and wiped his hands on his jeans. As soon as he let go, Gil fell over onto his side, blood pouring from the wound, the pike clattering against the stone floor, still embedded in his throat. Blood pumped out around the pike in slowing spurts. There was a hissing gurgle then a last sigh and Gil’s eyes glazed over.
“Fuck,” Brian yelled.
“Oh, my God,” Kimmy cried.
“Whoa,” Rider gasped. “That just happened.”
“No.” At Olivia’s roar the teens stumbled and fell to the floor next to Kimmy. “No.”
“I had to,” Highlander said, still wiping his hands on his jeans. “He wouldn’t stop. The ones like that never stop.”
“Dude,” Brian said quietly. “You killed him. You totally killed him.”
“He was a dick,” Kimmy said.