Father Auggie walked over to Damien slowly, pulling a long syringe out of the satchel hanging from his shoulder as he did. Victor stood to his feet and slammed against the limits of his chains.
“No!”
“Both of you have arrived in my life to teach me something.” Father Auggie shot him a glance, and Victor saw madness in his eyes. “It would be arrogant for me to refuse to learn it.”
Father Auggie leaned over Damien and injected the syringe into his arm. He slipped it into his satchel, pulled out another one, and walked toward Victor with slow, deliberate steps. Shaggy and Violet had wandered back into the room at the sound of the commotion and stood on either side of him.
“Hold him,” said Father Auggie.
“No!” Victor pushed himself back against the support beam. “This is insane!”
Shaggy and Violet grabbed his arms and legs and held them with superhuman strength. Victor tried everything, from flaring his auras, to snapping his teeth, and even in a very desperate and dirty move, spitting at Father Auggie.
“Just relax,” he said. “Soon enough, you will come around to our way of thinking. And you will be able to work miracles.”
The needle point of the syringe pushed into Victor’s arm. He couldn’t struggle. He couldn’t do anything, and a growing sense of dread and icy cold came over him as the plunger pushed down.
CHAPTER 25
Father Auggie, Violet, and Shaggy left the basement without saying another word. Victor collapsed into a heap on the floor, a growing sense of dread spreading through his body. He clawed at the spot on his arm where the injection had been forced in, leaving four puffy red finger nail tracks.
“Goddammit!”
Victor slammed his fist into the floor, punching the cement until his knuckles began to bleed and ache. There was no hope left for him, and all he felt capable of doing was curling up into a little ball and burying his face.
Strangely, Father Auggie had unlocked his chains on his way out. Victor had been numb after the injection, and Shaggy and Violet held him back from being able to take advantage of his opportunity. Victor wasn’t even sure that he could have, in his current mental state.
I can’t give up. I can’t let them break me.
Damien let out a groan from across the room. Victor went over to him and crouched at his side.
“Hey,” he said. “You okay?”
Damien shook his head, and then his body began to seize. One of his arms flailed out against the concrete, and his legs contorted at odd angles.
“Damien!” Victor reached down to help, but his hand was knocked away by a wild, kicking leg. Damien let out a low cry. Droplets of white foam dripped from his mouth, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head.
Victor couldn’t watch. He turned away and felt his heart begin to race faster, and faster. Part of him felt guilty and self-centered, for watching Damien filled him with more fear of what was to come for his own body than it did concern for his friend.
You’ll pay for this, Augustus. I swear it.
Damien’s body twitched one final time and then went still. Victor walked back over to where his friend lay with slow, cautious steps. It didn’t look like he was breathing.
“…Damien?”
Victor flinched back as Damien’s head jerked up to face him. His eyes looked strange, the pupils large enough to crowd out the whites. His face looked older, and his jaw hung at an odd angle, as though it had been expanded, or dislocated.
“Hold on…” Victor took a step back as Damien stood up and began moving toward him. “Damien, take a deep breath. Just-”
Damien lunged for him, his arms shooting out with more speed than any unenhanced human could manage. Victor let out a shout of surprise and tried to move out of the way. His foot caught on one of the discarded chains on the ground, and he fell backward.
“No!” Victor shielded his face as Damien’s fingernails raked at his eyes. Two punches followed in quick succession before he had any time to recover, each one slamming into his ribs.
Victor pulled his legs in toward his chest and slammed both of them outward into Damien’s shoulder. It knocked him off balance slightly, but did little else. Damien jumped back onto him, reaching out with furious hands as though he intended to rip Victor apart with his bare hands.
“Stop this!” screamed Victor. “Think about what you’re doing!”
The words had about as much of an effect on Damien as they would have on a reptile or a shark. He took another foot to the face as Victor kicked a second time, and then fell upon his friend.
Victor pulled his head back and slammed it forward into a desperate head-butt. He felt a cut open on his forehead, and Damien let out a howl of pain. It gave Victor enough time to roll out from his friend’s hold and then leverage himself to flip Damien over.
“Your mother!” yelled Victor. “Remember her? We all ate lunch together!”
Damien let out an inhuman screech and flew at Victor, pouncing into another attack. Victor quickly stepped out of range and moved to the other side of one of the wooden support beams, using it as a barrier between them.
“Damien…” he said, his voice losing what little hope it had. “We’re friends. We’re old friends. Please…”
Damien wasn’t there. It was a fact that Victor couldn’t deny as he stared into the emotionless eyes of the monster facing off against him.
But I’m still here… And I can save him!
A few tense seconds went by as Damien slowly tried to edge around the support beam to get an unobstructed line of attack. Victor watched him warily and formed a plan.
Damien finally made his move, rushing forward almost faster than Victor could react. He lunged a vicious strike forward, and instead of dodging to avoid it, Victor threw himself into it. He slammed into Damien’s legs hard, and felt the weight of his friend flip over him, leaving a painful bruise on his shoulder.
Victor scrambled to get an arm around Damien’s neck. He turned his face as far away from the range of his friend’s scratches as he got his chokehold into place, and then slowly began to tighten it.
Damien raked Victor’s arms with his fingernails, tearing bloody, painful trenches into them. Victor could feel his friend’s back scraping open the burns on his chest, and it took a dangerous amount of strength for him to keep the hold in place, but he didn’t let go.
The violent embrace continued for a long time, far longer than Victor had been expecting. Damien thrashed and pulled against the hold. Several times, Victor had to reset it, grabbing tighter and battling the sweat on his wrist for grip.
Finally, Damien began to grow weaker. Victor tightened the chokehold and felt a rush of exuberant aggressive joy rush through him. And then, unexpectedly, Damien regained his strength, rolling forward and flipping both of them over.
Victor kept the chokehold in place, and it worked too well. As they landed, he felt something give in his friend’s neck. He kept the hold in place for a few seconds, waiting for Damien to struggle, to fight back. He waited for his friend to prove that he was still alive.
“No…” Victor clenched his eyes and teeth. “Oh God, no!”
He let his arm drop. Damien still leaned against him and was quickly losing warmth. Victor shook Damien’s shoulder without looking at him, unable to accept what had just happened.
Victor blinked. He realized that tears were streaming down his face. The pain of his wounds felt like nothing compared to the dull, soul aching intensity of the knowledge of what he’d done.
His best friend was dead, and he’d been the one to kill him.
CHAPTER 26
Victor expected something to happen immediately, for an escalation of the situation to take place, but the room was quiet. He spent several minutes trying to find a heartbeat on Damien, only to relive the disappointment of his friend’s death over and over again.
He waited, knowing that he’d been given an injection just like the one Damien had received. His thoughts formed into a
terrible loop, which was only compounded by the sight of Damien’s body and the knowledge of what he’d done.
I can’t even apologize to him. He’s just gone.
A noise came from the top of the stairs, along with muffled voices. Victor stood to his feet and clenched his teeth. There was one thing he could do for his friend, and he’d never get a better chance. The scars on his chest pulsed with pain, and he lowered his eyes into a glare.
The door exploded open, flying off its hinges and landing in a smoldering heap. Kiara stood behind it, carefully scanning the dark basement before stepping down.
“Victor, come on!” she shouted. “Can you use your…?”
She trailed off as she saw Damien’s body on the floor. The last thing Victor wanted to do, at that moment, was explain himself, regardless of whether he’d been in the right or the wrong, or a third, less easily defined zone of morality.
“No, I still can’t use my auras,” he said.
“Just stay behind me, then!” she shouted. “We’re getting out of here!”
No sooner had the words left her mouth did Violet emerge from the stairs. She hurled herself onto Kiara, grappling and twisting her into a judo throw.
The two of them landed on the ground hard, with Violet on top. Victor walked over quickly, reeled back his leg, and kicked her in the side of the temple. It didn’t knock her out, but Kiara managed to get a hand free and around the biosplice’s neck. Her aura turned blue, and a plate-sized disc of ice formed through Violet’s neck, killing her instantly.
“We’re not taking prisoners.” Kiara said, the cold in her voice reflecting her powers. “Not today.”
Victor didn’t say anything, but he followed after her as she ran up the stairs. The cabin’s main level was still in ruins, and sounds of an intense battle came from outside. Victor stepped through the hole in the wall into the early morning light and stared in disbelief at what he saw.
An eight foot tall, vaguely humanoid robot was sparring with Shaggy and the spider girl. It moved with a surprising amount of grace, whirling motors and pistons on the inside of it giving it mobility that Victor had never seen before in a machine.
“Get behind me, Victor!” Kronenberg’s voice came from a loudspeaker installed into the head. Shaggy leaped onto the robot’s back and was then promptly thrown loose as the entire upper half of it whirled into a fast 360-degree turn.
Kiara rushed forward to his aid. Victor started to follow her and then paused, feeling through his awareness for his auras.
I still can’t use them. I’ll be practically useless in a fight.
He balled his hands into fists and ran toward the spider girl. He reached her just as Shaggy managed to get one of Kronenberg’s legs out from under him, toppling the robot to the ground. Kiara launched an icicle the size of a javelin at Shaggy, but he moved with unreal speed, catching it as it went by and slamming it down through one of the robot’s arms, leaving it pinned to the ground.
The spider girl had its attention turned to the robot, and Victor managed to land a solid kick to its head that, unfortunately, did almost nothing to phase it. Kiara was slowly falling back as Shaggy pressed forward after her. She froze the ground with her azure aura and launched blasts of ice at regular intervals, but the hulking biosplice didn’t even flinch.
The spider girl let out a hissing noise and leaped into the air at Victor. He ducked low into a roll across the snow, but still felt something rip into his calf as the girl landed. The movement brought him closer to Kronenberg, who was in the process of getting the icicle out and regaining his mobility.
“This is a clusterfuck,” said Kronenberg. “You sure know how to get yourself into trouble, Vic.”
Victor shrugged.
“It’s one of my skills.”
Another hiss came from the spider girl, and she scampered across the ground with surprising dexterity. Victor shielded his face and threw himself against her in a tackle, cringing at the noises the girl made and the slime that dripped from her mouth.
He slammed his elbow down into her face twice in a row before the spider girl slipped out of his hold. She kicked him hard in the temple, and stars exploded into his vision. Victor had only started to get his feet back underneath him when a cruel laugh came from the nearby forest.
Father Augustus snapped a slender tree in half as he pushed his way into the clearing that surrounded the cabin. He was bigger than he’d been in the last battle, close to ten feet tall, and ripping out of his pastor’s outfit like The Incredible Hulk’s evil cousin.
“This ends here,” he said. “If you aren’t willing to see reason, then I will not belabor this any longer.”
Kronenberg was back on his feet. He smashed a fist into the spider girl, squishing her into the ground with a sickening thud.
“I don’t think so,” he said, voice crackling out of a combat-damaged speaker.
The robot and the giant squared off with each other. If the circumstances had been less dire, Victor would have been thrilled by the encounter.
Kiara let out a cry from nearby, and Victor turned to see Shaggy dragging her over toward Father Auggie. Without hesitation, he rushed across the snow, throwing himself into a drop kick that slammed into Shaggy’s chest.
The blow knocked Victor off his feet and did about as much damage to the biosplice as a foam mallet would have. He crashed into the snow and saw Shaggy grinning down at him. Victor did the reasonable thing and grabbed a handful of white powder to throw up in his eyes. The biosplice just laughed.
“Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be,” said Father Auggie. “Give up. Work with us. We don’t have to fight.”
Victor glared at him. Kronenberg took the opportunity to charge forward, putting all of the weight of his metallic body into a single, lunging punch. Father Augustus dodged with surprising speed and snapped Kronenberg’s arm at the elbow.
The encounter left Victor distracted, and he didn’t react in time to Shaggy’s lunge. The biosplice got a hand around his left wrist and squeezed. Victor let out a cry of pain as he felt the bones in his hand shattering. It was almost as though Shaggy had squeezed a soda can, crumpling the skeletal structure of Victor’s hand as though it were made of thin aluminum.
“No!” Kiara let out a cry and shot an icicle toward the two of them. This time, it made it through, impaling Shaggy’s arm in a spot that almost mirrored the injury he’d dealt to Victor. The large man let out a cry of pain and released his grip.
Focus. Set the pain aside, and focus on helping.
Victor gritted his teeth and looked up at Father Augustus. The supersized preacher was ripping Kronenberg’s robot body apart, piece by piece. The spider girl moved from behind him, closing in on Victor.
He kept his injured hand held close to his stomach as he squared off against her. She spat something at him, and Victor managed to dodge it by less than an inch.
“Noooo!” Kiara let out a wail from behind him. Shaggy, still furious from her previous attack, had pinned her to the snow. He was slowly positioning himself to deliver the deathblow, while Kiara struggled to defend and attack with her azure aura.
The spider girl tripped Victor as he started toward Kiara and he tumbled to the ground. She moved fast, preparing to launch another spit attack.
And then it dawned on Victor, all at once, that he could feel his auras again. Something had changed inside of them, and he could feel the energy in the back of his awareness, patiently waiting to be tapped.
He stood up quickly, lifted his hand to the spider girl with his palm outstretched, and then bound his scarlet aura. The result was not what he’d been expecting.
Fire exploded out from his hand as though it were a jet engine. It blasted forward in a pillar with the circumference of a manhole cover and hit the spider girl head on. Flesh blackened into ashes as the fire stripped her bones clean. Her skeleton continued moving for a moment in an eerie refusal to acknowledge or accept death.
The attack drew the attentio
n of everyone and created a momentary pause in the action. Kiara took advantage of it, sliding her hand underneath Shaggy and binding her azure aura to something below the waist. He let out a blood-curdling shriek and rolled to the ground, clutching his hands between his legs.
“I got him,” said Kiara. “Go.”
Victor realized that Father Augustus was in the middle of retreating, running off deeper into the forest. He nodded to Kiara, took a deep breath, and then started running after him.
CHAPTER 27
Father Auggie’s enhanced size also gave him an advantage over Victor when it came to speed. Luckily, they were running through snow, and his trail was laughably easy to track. Victor followed at a brisk pace.
The trees began to thin out, and the trail led up a small hill. Victor sprinted up it, kicking up white powder in his wake. The air was cold, but the morning sun was over the horizon and unobstructed by clouds.
His opponent was waiting for him at the top of the hill. Father Augustus was no longer running and turned to face Victor as he made it up the last few feet.
“You have no idea what it is you’re doing,” said Father Auggie.
“I’m stopping you.” Victor clenched his teeth and tested the fingers in his broken hand. It moved, but shot waved of pain through the rest of him as it did.
“You’re stumbling through the dark, blind, and without a proper shepherd to lead you.” Father Auggie met his eye. “I could change that.”
“No. You couldn’t.”
“You’re being lied to, Victor!” Father Auggie’s voice grew louder and angrier. “Lied to, and used! By the people you trust!”
Part of Victor wanted to listen, to hear what the man had to say. And part of him suspected that there was at least a kernel of truth to his words.
It doesn’t matter. He’ll mix truth with lies, and after what he’s done, he has to die.
Victor stretched his palm out and gathered the energy needed to bind his scarlet aura. Father Auggie’s face contorted into a mask of fury and disbelief.
Forbidden Magic: The Complete Collection Page 22