by C Bilici
The fires in Godfrey’s eyes reduced to almost nothing. He turned those pinpricks to Fenton, just as the Shadow Man did, and his jaw stretched.
Godfrey’s throat lit up like the sun.
Stacey screamed as Fenton was lost in a deluge of fire. She pushed at the massive arm about her to no avail. Danica was not letting her go. The ceaseless onslaught of creatures had stopped, all of them falling back to watch the inferno.
The fireball grew, and Stacey’s body went limp.
Then it flared like a star.
Holding her arm up to shield her widening eyes, Stacey saw great arcs of flame shoot out to engulf the knight and the Shadow Man, wrapping around them. As the nebulous flames receded, Stacey saw that those flaming arcs were chains. The fireball burst outward, like a blooming flower, revealing Fenton at its centre.
Burnt red raw, smoking, bereft of hair, but still alive. Barely.
The flames surrounding Godfrey extinguished. Battered and burnt, he was free of all Umbra influence. The Shadow Man was nowhere to be seen. Seeing their leader destroyed, the attacking Umbra cowered away to melt into the darkness.
Like his master, the knight had seen better days. His rotten flesh was diminished on the great bones, an ugly puncture dripping gore on the side of his head. The fires in his eyes flickered dangerously low.
Stacey watched as Fenton went to Godfrey, limping through the air. She rushed forward, scooped up his shirt and shorts and, now by his side, held them out for him.
“I… Don’t think I’ll be… needing those.” He struggled to speak, tried to smile. The skin on and around his split, a wetness seeping from them that made Stacey whimper. “We don’t… have much time. I… don’t have much… time. Finish the mission.” His voice was rasped, like she could hear the scorched lungs.
Her grip tightened on the material in her hands. Stacey nodded. She knew he was right. She could tell from both his and Godfrey’s weakened state that the end was near. She didn’t want to leave them, even though she knew she had to.
Unbidden tears streamed down her cheeks, just as his last precious moisture and lifeblood stained the back of his fingers and he held out his fist, pointer and pinkie extended.
A sob escaping her lips, Stacey gently tapped his fist.
“It’s been an honour, Ms. Stacey Trampler.”
Stacey had to force her jaw to open. “Likewise, arsehole.”
He smiled. It was both beautiful and horrific.
Hitting the band on her arm, Stacey activated the transference recall Charlie had programmed into it.
Both she and Danica were yanked from the Void, and thrust into the light of the Nexus.
Ignoring the incredible pain in her body, Stacey lifted her head and looked around her. Jasper, Charlie, Despina and the others stood around with heads hung.
Charlie’s device — the bomb — was gone, traded in place for Stacey and Danica.
The mission completed, she allowed the pain to take hold of her. She grabbed onto it and wrapped it around her like a shroud, and let it take her consciousness.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
FENTON’S SKIN CRACKED and split all over his body as he climbed inside Godfrey’s ribcage, just as he had when they had rescued Stacey and Paul from the Void. Now though, the knights abdomen was mostly bereft of flesh and he could more easily nestle among the desiccated remains, musing how his own body now matched his avatars.
Let me heal you. This does not need to be the end, the creature within him cooed gently.
Fenton tried to speak, but could not, his lips seemed to be stuck together.
“Go fuck yourself,” a voice said for him.
He turned his head and saw Stacey, her form spectral, and smiled, his lips oozing. “I can see you,” he said. His voice so soft he wasn’t sure he’d actually spoken. But she heard him and smiled back.
“I told you, I’m not going to let you do this alone.”
I refuse to let you do this, the creature interrupted, ranting, letting its true face show once more.
“Oh, just eat a dick and die, bitch!”
Fenton chuckled. “Are… you talking to me? Or it?”
Stacey laughed. “You’re such a cock.”
Fool! I controlled and healed you once, I will do so again!
But the creature could not. Despite that his body was ravaged and weakened, the cage was now bolstered. Fenton’s body was no longer singular, he and Godfrey were truly one, and together whole. Once he had stepped into the avatars rib cage, their power merged. Nothing the creature attempted, no amount of ranting could save it now. It would die with them.
The Umbra had returned and were bearing down on them, rushing to stop giant and man.
“I’d better get moving,” Fenton said.
Stacey gave him a nod.
Godfrey moved forward and leant to climb inside the device. Once in, his hand reached out and pulled closed a cage like door.
The Umbra crashed against it to tear and rattle the enormous machine. As it hummed, building in power, it repelled.
“It’s time,” Fenton croaked, barely able to hold his head up.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Stacey said.
He stretched his hand toward her, fingers cracking, and smiled. “Thank you,” he whispered, voice barely audible over the growing whine of the machine.
But Stacey heard him. She reached out her hand, immaterial as it was, and touched her fingers to his.
The machine surged. Energy rushed out from it, pushing Stacey along with it.
As she flew outward, she saw the thing light up in all its glory, burning away the nearby Umbra instantly.
At its heart was a spherical cage that lit up the Void. It wasn’t much to look at. It was absolutely simplistic in appearance, really.
It looked somewhat like an eye with a sphere forming the pupil, a hoop around it lined with bars, now spinning around the central sphere, forming the iris. Several huge arcs stood out on four of its sides lending them the appearance of flower petals or eyelids that glowed ever more intently.
Then the entire space lit up as bright as a star, searing the symbol in her mind’s eye.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
SCORCHED AND TWISTED, moving with pained slowness, the Shadow Man addressed what remained of his ranks.
“No mercy,” he slurred through his burnt, misshapen lips. “No prisoners. First we take Earth, then we take the other realms. Take as much flesh as you can. No survivors! Make them pay. Make them suffer.”
The Umbra-men roared as one under their commander’s watchful eye.
Moments later, they became as one as the blinding light washed over them.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
THE ROADHOUSE BAR stood quiet on the side of the road, skirted on either side by near silent forest. The engine of the classic Mustang broke the air with a roar before calming to a purr as it slowed to pull up outside, wheels crunching on the gravel parkway out the front. The top was down, and the driver pulled a scarf off her head and fixed her hair as she stepped out, her boots grinding the crushed rock underfoot.
Eyes shielded from the light on the horizon by large sunglasses, which she peeked over the tops of to look around. Her thumb and mid-finger went to her lips when she was satisfied.
A German Shepard leapt from the back seat to lope to her side at the whistle.
“You were just going to let me go in there alone, were you?”
Head askew, the dog’s tongue lolled as it panted and looked up at her.
“You’re such an arsehole,” Stacey said to the dog, who whimpered in response before they moved to enter. She opened the door for the dog who sat at the threshold, unmoving. “You’re not a fucking vampire, no one needs to invite you in, shit head.”
With a whine, the dog walked in before her.
A man in checkered flannel behind the bar turned about. The shirts open front flapped to show a faded t-shirt and gut beneath it. “You can’t bring that in here, darlin’,” the man sai
d in a thick, phlegmy voice.
“Oh, come on,” Stacey said with as much charm as she could muster. “Can’t you see I’m a poor, lost, blind Aussie girl, and this is my guide dog?” She smiled, then added, “Mister,” and batted her eyelashes.
The man sighed through his bulbous nose, spidered with red veins. “It causes trouble, I don’t care how cute either of you are, you’re out on your asses. Got me?”
Stacey crossed her heart and held her hand up.
Nodding, the man took out a bowl, filled it with water, and handed it to her, at which she smirked. “That for me or the dog?” She walked to the end of the bar, far from the door, and set the bowl down.
The dog looked at the water then back up at her.
“Well? Drink up, dumb arse.” She turned back to the barman with a smile and heard lapping at her feet. The man leant on the bar and gave her a look. “Blind leading the blind” she said, smiling wider.
The barman raised his eyebrows. “Now you’re dog’s drinkin’, what can I fix you up with?”
“Whiskey,” she said, and removed the oversized aviators from her face. “About this much.” She indicated a measure with her thumb and finger that equalled roughly half a tumbler.
The man nodded and took a glass out from beneath the bar before tipping a black labelled bottle and watched the golden liquid slosh out.
“So, what brings the two of you to the U.S. of A?” he said without looking up.
“Oh, you know, this and that. Me and my little mate here have been looking up some old friends. You know how it goes.”
The man nodded as he righted the bottle on the counter. He walked to the end of the bar, put down a cardboard coaster, then the tumbler in front of her. “World’s gettin’ smaller ‘n’ smaller.”
“That it is. Cheers.” The glass rose before she took a sip and let out a hum of appreciation as the liquor warmed her throat and chest.
The door opened, followed by the sound of guffawing men. She didn’t bother to turn, instead took another drink and caught her own eye in a mirror behind rows of bottles on a shelf.
The face that looked back at her was leaner than she remembered, as was the rest of her. She would never be thin, but that didn’t bother her. She loved her curves in all the right places. They’d just become more toned and accentuated from all the exercise she’d been putting herself over the past six or so months, not to mention her mostly liquid diet.
Six months, she mused. She’d been here longer than that, she knew. It had been at least that since she’d decided to leave Australia, since she’d decided to leave Despina and Wards of the South.
It was strange how much things changed in such a short time.
And how much could never be erased.
The door sounded again, but there was no following banter. Footsteps neared her before stopping by her side. The dog lifted its head from its paws and let out a low growl, quieting when she shushed.
“This seat taken?” the person asked.
“Free world. Be my guest,” she said.
The stool beside pulled out with a loud scrape on the wooden floor, the noise echoing through the bar. When the person sat, the seats legs knocked and screeched as the person fidgeted and bounced it forward.
“Jesus, Charlie!” Stacey near yelled, putting the tumbler down on the bar harder than she intended. “Could you make any more fucking noise?”
“You used to love all the noises I made once upon a time,” she said, pouting and stopping the bartender halfway to her. “Banging away for hours, remember?”
Mouth ajar, the barman turned about face and went to clean imaginary dust off a glass.
Stacey let out a throaty laugh and threw her arm over the skinny girl. “Oh, I missed you, you crazy bitch!”
Charlie poked her in the ribs and she jumped. The dog leapt to all fours and growled at Charlie again.
“Oi!” Stacey barked at it and it backed into the wall. “Settle down! She’s a friend.”
“Who’s this puppy dog?” Charlie said in a cute voice, spinning on the seat to hop off the stool, her short dress swaying, boots thumping on the floorboards.
“I always thought you’d be more of a cat person,” Stacey said, smirking as she took a drink.
“Yeah, har-de-har.” Charlie leant forward to pat the dog before snatching her hand back as it bared its teeth at her. “Whoa! He has your winning personality I see.”
“Fanta!” Stacey growled and glared at the creature, her eyes swirling darkness. The dogs snarl lessened to a groan and it sat on its haunches, nose pointed at her face as it met her gaze.
Charlie let out a gasp of surprise as she saw the dog’s eyes swirl to match Stacey’s. “What the…”
“Yeah. I kinda saved Fanta’s ass out in the woods, didn’t I, ya little fucker?” The dog’s eyes normalised and it let out a whine and licked it’s snout. “You know how it goes. Cabin in the woods, monsters, booze and drugs. Not so much of the sex, unless you count solo acts.”
Charlie nodded like she was listening. “So, you came back to the Enclave and didn’t think to pay me a visit?”
Swirling her glass, Stacey shrugged. “Needed some space,” she said, took a sip.
“Fanta?” Charlie asked, after a long silence.
“I like Fanta.” She took a longer gulp. “Plus, it was as close as I could name him without actually disrespecting the dead.”
Charlie gave Stacey her signature smile.
The bartender appeared back at the bar now they’d stopped talking and scowled at them. “You got that mutt, and your friend, under control, or do we have a problem?”
“Settle, petal,” Stacey said. “Little dude’s just hungry. Don’t suppose you’ve got something—”
The man blinked at her then sighed. “Yeah. I reckon I can get it a steak, but I don’t want it messin’ up my floor. He eats outside.”
Stacey put up her hands in submission. “Your house, your rules.”
“You can bring him out back with and I’ll—”
“No need.” Stacey looked down at the dog. “Fanta. Tucker time. Go with the nice man.” The dog sat up and made to move. “Fanta!” The dog stopped, inclining its head to her. “Be nice, or else!”
With a groan, Fanta walked around the bar as the bartender watched in awe. “I’ll be a sonofabitch.”
“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” Stacey said to the man as he walked away, heard him chuckle in laughter. Stacey watched as the man led the dog out the back. “Smoke?” she said to the girl beside her.
With a nod, Charlie let herself drop from the stool and followed Stacey outside. Stacey walked to the Mustang and leaned over the passenger door. She opened the glove compartment and took out a brass cigarette case and lighter, one foot rising from the ground as she did. From near the front of the building, she heard wolf whistling and catcalls. Uncurling herself from over the door, she looked up, saw the men that had entered the bar earlier.
“Yeah, baby!” one of them yelled out.
“Take a picture, arsehole, it’ll last longer,” she yelled back. She opened the case and handed Charlie a smoke.
“Well, alright, sugar. Just lean back over while I get out my phone,” another called out, his friends laughing.
“Not now, douchebag. My girlfriend and I are going to have a smoke first.”
Sparking the bullet lighter, she held the flame out for Charlie, then lit her own before sliding both into an inner pocket of the denim jacket she wore.
“Hey, I got somethin’ you two can smoke right here!” the first man yelled, grabbing his crotch.
“Sure. You find us a magnifying glass and some tweezers and we’ll light it on fire for you.”
Charlie chuckled, blowing out smoke. “Glad to see you’ve kept your signature wit intact.”
“There a problem here?”
Stacey and Charlie turned to see the bartender, baseball bat in hand. He looked the three men up and down.
“No problem, man.” The
first speaker, obviously the leader of the group, stood taller and hitched his thumbs in his belt. “We’re just havin’ some fun with these pretty little dykes.” He turned to look at them. “Aint that right, dykes?” he called out louder.
“Last I remember,” Stacey said, pausing to drag on her smoke, “you were going home to fetch a magnifying glass and tweezers from your mummy so you could jerk off.” Stacey took another hit from the cigarette and leant casually against the car. “Wasn’t that right, Charlie?”
“That is indeed right, Stacey.”
“Well then,” the bartender said, “best you boys be off.”
“But we ain’t had our fun yet,” the ringleader said, lowering his voice, eyes locked on the bartender’s as he moved steadily closer. “Or finished our drinks.” Hearing a low growl behind him, the man turned. His creased brow rose as the German Shepard’s teeth clamped on his friend’s crotch. “What the fu—”
“Fanta,” Stacey said, amused. “Didn’t the nice man give you any sausage to go with your steak?”
“I don’t reckon I did,” the bartender said, chuckling as he slapped the head of the baseball bat on the flat of his palm.
The ringleader pulled a knife. With a flick, he made to move on the dog.
Fanta growled and clamped down harder, causing the man he held to whimper.
“Fuck’s sake, Vern, back off!” the captive man said.
“Yeah, vern,” Stacey said, smoking casually. “Back the fuck off.”
Vern put the knife away slowly and held his hands aloft.
“Get back to your truck, start it up and get outta here, and I’m sure the nice dog will let go of your buddy’s nuts,” the bartender said, then cocked his head at Stacey without taking his eyes off Vern. “Aint that right?”
“Sure as a bear shits in the woods,” Stacey said, then attempted to blow smoke rings.
Watching in fascination, Charlie shook her head. “You’re enjoying this far too much.”
Stacey grinned.
Vern and his free man backpedaled off the roadhouse porch at a cautious speed, his sidekick running for giant Ford pickup truck. Vern eyed Stacey as his cowboy boots moved over the stones. The doors thudded shut, and the engine roared to life.