‘I’m fine Fran, I’m fine. Can you untie me?’
‘Of course,’ she said and looked at the cable ties. ‘I need a knife or something.’
‘Over there, look, that guy on the floor.’
Fran looked round to see one of the Inquisitors unconscious on the floor, there was a knife strapped to his belt, so Fran darted forward and removed it from its sheath.
‘Careful with that,’ Stephan said as Fran gently cut the plastic that bound Stephan’s wrists. As she worked, she saw that the female Inquisitor who was with Vito must have caught the edge of the blast and was now out cold against the far wall of the carriage. She also noticed that Liz had walked over to the book and watched as she closed it and picked it up, hugging it to her chest.
Stephan’s bindings were cut seconds later and he rose from the chair, falling into an embrace with Fran who hugged him back, hard. A simple hug had never felt so good, so she closed her eyes and relished the embrace of the young man she loved.
Nate followed Yasmin into another carriage, the Inquisitorial car was not far ahead now, and Yasmin’s pace was purposeful, but not rushed. People had been surging away from these end carriages, this particular one was basically empty, just a few people darted for the door Yasmin had just stepped through, ignoring her and Nate as they went.
He noted the smashed window and blasted doorway at the far end of the car that had been splattered with blood and understood the terror of the passengers that had been in here. They had seen some violence only moments ago judging from the freshness of the gore and the Crusader Knight body parts that littered the floor..
But they didn’t pause, they continued on through the car, until half way through, to the surprise of Nate, she stopped.
Nate felt it a second before the side of the passenger car exploded inwards scattering seats and debris everywhere, bouncing off the walls and force shields of the two Magi.
Vito leapt into the opening brandishing his gun and sword.
He rose up from his landing crouch and stepped further inside, his tattered clothes hanging limply about him.
It was only by the Grace of God that he had somehow managed to grab the side of the bridge and stop his fall into the valley below. The train had braked and eventually came to a stop as Vito dragged himself back up onto the bridge, and made a brief prayer to the Lord, asking for God’s Grace. He had felt the power of the saviour flood into him, making him ready to take on the demon spawn that had attacked him.
Furious at the attack by the two witches he unleashed some of that power on the carriage in front of him and had jumped inside.
Vito suddenly realised he wasn’t alone and looked to his right at the pair of figures who stood there looking at him. The closest one wore a form fitting black outfit that might as well have been a second skin it was so fitted. This deep black cat suit looked wet in the flickering lights of the train car as they faltered from the explosion while black mist fell from her body and seeped over the floor around her. The woman’s face had a severe look to it, angular with cheek bones that could chop wood. She looked at him, her head cocked to one side with curiosity.
The man beside her though, he recognised that one with his tattooed arms and short cropped blonde hair. This had been the wizard who had attacked and killed his men in London.
Slowly his eyebrows dropped into a frown and his mouth twisted into a vindictive smile. He didn’t know who the woman could be, but he didn’t care, they were both Devil Spawn and he would end them here. Filled with his God’s Grace, he turned to face the pair and to bring God’s judgement upon them.
‘I’ve just about had it with you witches, may god have mercy on your soul,’ he intoned in a righteous voice.
‘Really? You want to do this?’ asked the woman, a slight amused smile twisting her lips.
Vito didn’t answer with words, instead he took two quick steps and leapt at Yasmin, brandishing his sword while firing off a quick burst with his Semi-Automatic Pistol that glowed with Angelic energy. The rounds slammed home into the woman’s Aegis, but stopped dead, the bullets Magic dissipating like little exploding fireworks as they hit.
Vito’s Godly power carried him far through his leap, and half way through it, he called on God to help him, to surprise his foes with His might. Vito teleported two meters closer to Yasmin in a show of Angelic might.
As he reappeared, Vito used his speeding thoughts, again also enhanced through his devotion to his Lord, to call on Gods hand to side swipe at the man. The force of this Angelic power flung the Man into the carriage wall while another attack flew towards the woman in the shape of a bolt of heavenly white light.
The attack against the woman simply died as it hit her hellish shield. Vito noticed that she didn’t flinch or even blink, she just raised one eyebrow and Vito froze in mid-air before reaching his target.
The feeling could only be described as an odd one. Vito found that he could hardly move as he hovered there maybe a meter or so above the ground, his body feeling like rock as only his eyes actually moved. He couldn’t even blink and his eye’s started to water with the panic he felt inside.
Had God forsaken him? It seemed impossible, so he mentally asked the lord of all life to help him once more and free him from this prison so that he might strike her down in his name. But his efforts to escape merely sparked little frustrated pyrotechnics that fizzed and popped uselessly.
He looked at her then, wondering if he knew this Witch who was clearly one of Lucifers chosen ones. Vito suddenly found that his mouth and jaw had been freed and could move.
‘Who are you!’ he screamed at her, his pent up frustration getting the better of him, ‘Let me out of here or you’ll be sorry!’
The woman let an evil little grin play over her scarlet lips. ‘Who am I?’ she said, slowly and delicately, ‘I am death’.
His mind coming too, Nate looked up at his master as she looked up at the figure a couple of meters in front of her, hovering there but frozen in space by her magic. Barely a second after her answer to his question, Vito’s body was slammed into the floor by an invisible force that could crush a car. Once, twice, three times in under a second Vito hit the metal floor, leaving large dents in it each time before finally being pummelled sideways into the wall next to the hole he had made in the side of the carriage with the same force, severely warping it.
Vito hung there against the wall, held up by Yasmin’s Magic, practically every bone in his body crushed and shattered. Nothing hung at the correct angles from his body which shuddered as what used to be his mouth tried to take in air. The sound was little more than a painful wheeze interspersed with gags and other indescribable sounds that escaped from the ruin that had once been his face.
Yasmin cocked her head slightly to one side as she looked at him.
‘Hrmmph,’ she muttered, shrugging. She turned away and started to walk as Vito’s body became suddenly wracked by violent shudders. The sound that came from the Inquisitor might possibly have been a scream, but it wasn’t one that you might recognise as human. That’s when he suddenly exploded over the wall, his body reduced to nothing bigger than fist sized globs of flesh.
Nate wiped his bloodied lip and quickly caught up with his Master. As they reached the far end of the carriage, a single thought by Yasmin and the whole car behind them both exploded, leaving no further trace of her run in with Vito.
Amanda stepped over the roof to where the side of the Inquisitors carriage had been blasted off a few moments ago and looked down, she could drop inside there quite easily. Suddenly there was a loud explosion from further up the train, as a whole carriage just disintegrated. Amanda didn’t like the look of that at all, it suggested more Magi of the kind she didn’t like.
Quickly she dropped into the car below, landing between Liz and her friends and the fight between the five remaining Inquisitors, Gentle Water and now Raven. The nearest Inquisitors had their backs to Amanda, and did not notice her arrival. Liz, Fran and Stephan stood much closer to her, clearl
y safe for the moment, relatively speaking.
A loud bang sounded from the far side of the carriage, beyond the fight in the middle of the car. She turned to see the door on the far wall come flying off its hinges and slam into one of the Knights who dropped to the floor.
A Blonde beauty in a while blouse and short pencil skirt stepped through that doorway, gun in hand and terrible purpose etched upon her face. She raised the pistol and pointed it at the Knight who had been hit with the door and who had been struggling to his feet to face this new threat, and blew him to kingdom come.
Beside Amanda, Fran and Liz screamed and cowered away as they recognised the woman.
‘You know her?’ Amanda asked.
‘Angel, yes, she wants the book,’ Fran said, gesturing to the Golden tome that Liz clutched to her chest.
‘Stay here,’ Amanda said, and quickly dodged around the fight that Gentle Water and Raven were in as Angel raised the gun again.
As she moved Amanda flooded her Aegis with Essentia to strengthen it before leaping towards Angel and aimed a fast spin kick at the gun.
It connected with a satisfying crunch and the gun flew from Angel’s grasp.
‘What the…?’ she spat in shock and stared at Amanda for a beat.
Amanda didn’t waste any time waiting for this Nomad to acknowledge her though and threw a powerful punch at the woman, hoping to take her out in one.
But the punch landed in Angel’s hand that appeared as if from nowhere.
Amanda pulled her fist back and followed it up with a kick to the gut, but once again Angel caught her.
Amanda locked eyes with Angel then for just a moment before Angel twisted Amanda’s foot. Not wanting a broken leg, Amanda went with it, spinning in mid-air before a Magical force threw her against the wall. She dropped towards the floor with a grunt, and gasped for breath as Angel held out her hand and the gun leapt from the floor back into her grasp. With no ceremony at all, Angel pointed the gun at Amanda’s head and fired.
Instinctually, Amanda hardened her Force Aegis, stopping the bullet dead, but only just and only inches from her forehead as the Magical energy that had propelled it smashed over the Aegis in a shower of colourful energy.
Wasting no time, Amanda leapt up and cart wheeled towards Angel without her hands touching the floor. As she spun and tumbled towards Angel, Amanda’s feet flew out in lightning quick attacks, striking Angel across her face.
In a rage Angel spun on Amanda.
‘How dare you,’ she spat.
Magical energy knocked Amanda sideways into the door frame with a yelp, the force of the attack making her Aegis spark and fluoresce. With barely a second to react to the pain let alone anything else, the same invisible force threw her into the side wall again, knocking the wind out of her and leaving her gasping for breath. Amanda felt her Aegis shield falter under the magical onslaught. Gritting her teeth and using her last reserves of energy she forced more Essentia into her Aegis.
Angel turned more fully towards Amanda and took a casual step up to her, lowering her chin and fixing her with a more intense stare as energy flooded out of her, Angel’s Magic burst through Amanda’s Aegis and clamped around her neck, lifting her from the ground.
Amanda’s legs kicked out as she struggled against the energy around her neck, she clawed at it in panic trying to find the thing that was choking her and cutting off her airway, but to no avail.
Gasping for breath and trying to gather her thoughts to retaliate Amanda watched a Crusader step toward Angel raising his sword as he approached. Without looking at her new attacker, Angels arm snapped up, gun in hand and pointed to the crusaders head. The man had barely a fraction of a second to register a look of confusion before his face was blown off by the bark of the gun.
Amanda felt the grip tighten and she took her last desperate gasp of air as she scanned the room, her eyes wide in desperation. She caught Raven’s eye suddenly, and hope bubbled up as she realised that he’d seen her predicament, but his attacker saw the gap in his defences and took advantage of it, forcing Raven to defend himself.
Looking back to Angel once more, Amanda felt troubled to see the Nomad not even looking at her any more as the Magical energy continued to crush her neck. Angel fired her gun at another knight who strayed too close, killing him instantly and spraying blood up the wall as she looked over the top of the fight to where Liz held the golden book less than ten meters away.
Angel straightened herself, concentrating, and Amanda saw the gathering of magical energy around Angel that then reached out towards the book in Liz’s grasp.
Amanda watched through the tears welling up in her eyes as she began to feel her lungs burn, imploring her for life giving air.
Liz looked panicked for a moment as she felt the book being pulled from her arms, before quickly taking a tighter hold of it as the floating book lifted Liz off of the floor and towards the fight.
Amanda couldn’t watch any more, her own situation took precedence over anyone else’s as she tried in vain to take another breath. It was then that she felt a dark veil start to fall over her, her vision darkened and the world started to slip away as she became starved of oxygen.
A bright flare filled her fading sight suddenly and the magical energy that held her neck so tightly disappeared, dropping her to the floor in a heap. She snapped her head up quickly as she took in a huge lung full of wonderful air to see if another attack might be incoming, but instead saw Angel fall to her knees as if pushed from behind as her own Aegis was ripped away from her in bright display of light and flashes. It was then that Amanda sensed the crushing force of a powerful Magical presence just outside the doorway to the train car and watched as a raven haired woman in form fitting black stepped into the carriage, staring down at Angel.
Athletic and slim, the woman’s sharp features looked like they were carved from ice. Her dark eyes framed in alabaster skin bore down at Angel who looked up at her attacker at first in anger, and then upon seeing the dark clad lady, in a growing look of fear. The woman stood in the doorway, and scanned the room with a quick flick of her eyes which came to rest upon Amanda who sat sprawled in a very un-lady-like way barely two meters away, gasping for breath.
Amanda felt somewhat in awe of the woman as she rubbed her aching throat. She looked like she wore some kind of skin tight black number that covered everything but her head, and then atop that she seemed to be cloaked in a gently wafting black mist of smoke that fell from her body and spilled over the floor like dry ice.
Off to her left, the fight continued, but despite the noise of clashing swords Amanda still heard Angel whisper two words under her breath in awe and terror of the woman in the doorway.
‘Baal Yasmin!’ muttered Angel, but Yasmin wasn’t listening, instead she looked down at Amanda, her face changing from calm detachment to one of incredulity.
‘Amanda?’ she said to herself. She looked up for a second, focusing on nothing and clearly deep in thought, before she glanced at the carriage once more and smiled to herself, ever so slightly.
A man with short cropped blonde hair and twisting tattoos that encased his arms in sleeves of ink entered the carriage behind Yasmin, a huge curved dagger in his hand. He went to step past Yasmin, brandishing the weapon, but Yasmin gently put a hand on the man’s arm, checking his forward progress.
Yasmin seemed to come to a conclusion then that apparently changed everything as she didn’t look interested in the golden book anymore. Angel suddenly lifted from the floor and hung in space beside Yasmin who returned her withering gaze back down to Amanda.
‘Be seeing you,’ she said, as the roof above her blew out and Yasmin, the blonde man and Angel shot up through it into the cool blue sky and were gone.
Relaxing for a moment, Amanda took a few deep breaths before pulling herself to her feet. What the hell had all that been about she thought. Both Angel and Yasmin had been after the book, which explained Yasmin subduing Angel, but all of a sudden Yasmin didn’t seem to be
interested in it any more. How odd she mused.
She looked across the carriage to the fight. Raven and Gentle Water were coping fine and subduing the last two men, but something else caught her eye.
Beyond the fight, Liz slowly backed away from the melee after having been dropped from Angel’s magical grasp very close to it, and beyond her Stephan held Fran in a tight embrace. But it was the figure farthest from Amanda that caught her eye and made her shout and leap onto a nearby bench to dodge her way past the fight.
Fran and Stephan both looked up at Amanda as behind them, Mary swung her crusader sword and decapitated them both in a single swing.
Liz turned and watched in disbelief as their heads dropped to the floor with two dull thuds, their bodies following moments later as Liz let out a wail that filled the carriage. Amanda jumped down beside Liz, Magical energy bolstering her Aegis and flowing through her body ready to destroy this murdering woman. But Mary quickly saw the odds stacked against her and took two bounding steps to the blown out side of the carriage and leapt out over the side of the aqueduct the train had halted upon and into mid-air. By the time Amanda had reached the side wall of the aqueduct and looked down, Mary was gone.
The fight drew to a close behind her as she scanned the valley floor and all that could be heard from the carriage was the sound of a girl who had just seen her sister killed right before her eyes.
It’s been two weeks now with no contact from her, which for Angel, is unusual. We are actively hunting for her now and following up on the last leads we had of her. Further reports will be made as things develop.
- Nephalim Industries report by Michael on the missing CEO Angel Alergeri.
Epilogue 1
Question
No Where
August
Kez moved over the black stone floor, as if gliding rather than walking, her movements looking nothing like a typical walk. As she moved the ‘tak, tak, tak’ sound of whatever she used to walk on emanated from under her voluminous ragged cloak. You could barely see the cave like walls of the huge room she walked through, only a few places in the space had any light to them. Of course, this being Yasmin’s Sepulchre, her Coven House, it looked just how Yasmin wanted it to look.
Magi Saga 1: Epic Calling Page 44