The Edge of Temptation: Gods of the Undead 2 A Post-Apocalyptic Epic

by Peter Meredith

  Wherever the mist fell, it neutralized the venom and washed away the black holes in Jack’s skin leaving him completely unmarred and able to feel every inch of his body once again.

  He found it glorious, while on the other hand the mist perplexed the sorcerer, who backed away from the droplets as if afraid to get any on him. This allowed Jack enough time to roll over and snatch up his sword. He attacked without hesitation and without warning. The black darts and the lightning bolt had been proof that he had seriously underestimated the sorcerer’s reserve of strength and his magical ability.

  The sword cut a silver arc as Jack went on the offensive. The sorcerer countered by slowing time by half and dodging the thrust by the barest of margins. Jack swept his sword in a shining deadly arc once again, saving his magical energy and using his skill and speed advantage in an attempt to wear down the sorcerer; however his opponent unexpectedly pulled a sword of his own out from within the folds of his billowing robe.

  It was a slim katana and one that was a bit shorter than most. He raised it assuming a fighting stance; however instead of attacking, he hissed: “Kru vah ah-tan-rahe.”

  This sounded so much like the last spell that Jack darted in, lunging at the sorcerer before more of those strange blood darts flew at him. The spell wasn’t the same. Instead of turning his blood into poisoned darts, it darkened his blade, black as coal.

  At the sight of it, Jack hesitated, appraising the new magic and not quite understanding it. “Seems like a bit of a waste of energy if you ask me,” Jack remarked, turning his head side to side, trying to see the blade fully. “I mean, if you can run me through, don’t you think the poison is a bit of an overkill?”

  Jack was fishing for information before he committed to another attack, only the sorcerer was too cagey and remained silent. Strangely, he also stayed on the defensive; a mistake, or so Jack thought. Before his enemy could come up with another, perhaps more effective spell, Jack darted in, looking to stab over his opponent’s blade, which was held invitingly low.

  Showing some skill, the sorcerer blocked the attack, but for some reason he didn’t follow up with a riposte which was normal in fighting sword to sword. Frequently, a blow was only landed after a few passes as each fighter looked to gain an advantage in position.

  The sorcerer was content to block and leap back. Again this seemed foolish as Jack was obviously the quicker of the two. It was clear that eventually one of his attacks would get through the defense. Surely, the sorcerer had to see that; instead he was watching Jack with glee in his eyes.

  Jack was suddenly very nervous. The sorcerer was fully expecting something bad to happen, but what? He hoped that he could kill his enemy before whatever was going to happen, happened; however as Jack brought his sword up, he saw that the shining metal was no longer shining. It was turning black from the tip on down to the handle.

  “What the hell?” Jack cried, struck by indecision. He saw what was going to happen: the sorcerer’s paralytic spell would travel right down the blade and into his skin. The only question was: would it only affect his hand or would it completely numb him head to toe?

  He couldn’t take the chance to find out and so he dropped the sword with a yelp. This had the sorcerer laughing which, for Jack was at least better than being attacked. It gave him precious seconds to dig out another vial, this one was of Holy Oil.

  As quick as he could, he poured it on the blade and was happy to see the poison dry up and once again the sword shone like silver. The sorcerer calmly pointed out: “You have one left, only. You will lose.” Then he repeated his spell, feeding more poison into his blade. He beckoned Jack to come at him, but Jack declined with a shake of his head.

  How could he attack? He would be paralyzed within a second of their swords touching, something that couldn’t be avoided. What he needed was some way to drain the sword of its magic, or neutralize it in some way. The idea of throwing his last vial of Holy Water at the sword crossed his mind; however, he knew that would be a very chancy throw of a small amount of precious fluid.

  “What if I burned it out?” he wondered, as a plan began to brew. As the sorcerer started advancing with the tip of his blackened sword held far out in front of him, Jack didn’t have time to consider the repercussions. After learning from Truong, Jack had embedded razors in his armor at strategic points and he used one to cut his arm, hissing: “Shishin Ighn,” and then adding “Rahe,” as the sorcerer had with his spell.

  Lightening suddenly lit up his blade with a crackling white light. Like the sorcerer, Jack held his blade out ahead of him, although for him it was because he was afraid of getting a little of his own medicine in the form of mild electrocution.

  The sight of the glowing sword caused the sorcerer to hesitate, but only for a second, and then with a cry, he sprang forward. Their swords met and the magical energy flashed, alternating dark and light as each tried to gain the upper hand.

  Jack was amazed to find that they were very nearly evenly matched, at least at the moment. The Master of the Eastern Rivers had a far deeper capacity of energy; however, judging by his cratered face, he had already gone through some sort of trial that day and was weak.

  Three times they crossed swords, the light and dark battling as ferociously as the metal that rang out. On the fourth pass, Jack’s lunge was the quicker and his blade sank deep into the left shoulder of his opponent. The cut was deep and yet it was the lightning exploding into the sorcerer that did the most damage. The man was lifted off his feet and blown back to land within the doorway of St. Martin’s temple.

  “Give up,” Jack urged, striding forward.

  “No,” the sorcerer growled, climbing to his feet. “You fight the Mother. You pit yourself against the Queen of Souls and you will lose and you will suffer, and so will everyone who helps you. I will not help you. I will defeat you and gain everlasting glory. Kru vah ah-tan-rahe!” His blade went black again.

  In answer, Jack said: “Shishin Ighn-rahe,” although he said it with some reluctance. He knew that he was not only quicker than his opponent, he was a far superior swordsman. The sorcerer was a magician first and foremost and a swordsman a distant second. He was sloppy in his defense and slow in riposting. He had obviously relied in the past on slowing time to gain a speed advantage over his opponents, and yet Jack could equal him there.

  It was only a matter of a few more passes and the man would be hit again and probably wouldn’t be able to recover, and that meant Jack had a tough choice: should he kill the man or let him go free?

  He was bogged down in the dilemma and didn’t see the cold calculations behind the sorcerer’s remaining eye—he wasn’t about to go down so easily. Their swords rang out with a fury as they clashed and then for a moment they were pressed almost chest to chest, and here again was another reason Jack thought he would win: he was also bigger and stronger than the smaller Asian.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw how the fight would end: with a grunt, he would throw the man back and before he could recover his proper footing, Jack would beat down his Katana and slash him across the throat.

  Reality wasn’t quite so simple. Unexpectedly, the sorcerer bit down on his tongue and with a bloody mouth breathed: “Kru vah ah-tan.” The words came out in a black cloud of paralyzing poison going directly into Jack’s face which froze in a corrupted mask of fear.

  Jack could see, but only through his squinted lids, and he couldn’t move his eyeballs side to side, so he was forced to torque his shoulders back and forth to catch a glimpse of anything on his periphery. His ears felt as though they were stuffed with cotton and his mouth seemed welded shut. He had managed to hold his breath before the cloud struck, but now the poison was crawling up his nostrils and into his sinuses and down the back of his throat. If he dared to take a breath he knew that he would suck the residue of the poison into his lungs and then it would be lights out for Jack.

  Frantic, he thrust out with all of his strength, sending the sorcerer reeling backwards. With his sw
ord arm swinging back in forth in a pathetic attempt to keep his enemy at bay, Jack dug for the last vial of Holy Oil. Just as he popped the top off, he saw the dark form of the sorcerer coming at him, his blade held aloft like a black hammer.

  Desperately, Jack flung his sword up, taking the blow on the flat of the blade with a flash bright enough to blind them both as he put all of his magical strength into the lightning dancing on the steel. The power shooting from the edge of the sword caused the sorcerer to step back for a moment, giving Jack enough time to splash himself in the face with the oil.

  The effect was less than miraculous.

  He could see once again; however, everything was a blur of oil and tears within a background of utter darkness. The sorcerer was only a shifting black shadow with a terrible black sword that came down again and again, smashing without any art or skill. He hammered relentlessly straight onto Jack’s blade, so that with every blow the black sword came closer and closer to Jack’s flesh.

  In desperation, Jack flailed with his left hand and caught hold of the sorcerer’s robe and pulled him in close. They were too close for sword work and everything was still too blurry for him to see. The sorcerer’s fist seemed to come out of nowhere to crack him beneath the jaw, knocking him to the ground and sending his sword clattering away, it’s magical lightning draining uselessly into the ground.

  At first all he saw were stars and all he tasted was copper blood, but then the sorcerer’s face swam into view. “Will you beg for your life like a coward?” he asked, leering again now that he had won. “Or will you beg to die like a man?” In answer, Jack spat into the sorcerer’s face, speckling him with black and red. It wasn’t just out of anger that he spat, the taste of the old poison in his mouth was foul.

  “I won’t be begging for anything,” he answered in a bit of a slur. His tongue was swelling where he had bitten it.

  “For that, I’ll make sure you beg, but not for your life, but for the life of the woman. If you kiss my feet and lick my shoes, I might keep her alive. You two have been useful in stirring things up and keeping prying eyes from me. So beg me and I might keep her alive for a while longer.”

  Jack took stock of his situation. He was flat on his back with his arms straddled and his sword too far away to be of any use. The fact that he couldn’t move meant cutting himself was no longer an option and so effective magic was out of the question. He had no choice but to beg for Cyn’s life—except he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  He loved her and feared that even now she was trapped in the wreckage of the downed helicopter, and would be easy picking for the sorcerer and yet, every time he opened his mouth to beg, his swollen tongue would freeze as if it was still paralyzed.

  This odd feeling gave him an idea that was nearly driven out of his head when the sorcerer produced a knife so quickly that it was almost like magic itself. He held the point over his palm, delicately touching the scarred flesh there. “I know magics that will turn you grey with fear. I know magics that will have you tearing out your own bones.” He moved the dagger away from his own skin and brought it closer to Jack’s face, hovering it just above his right eye.

  “You want me to beg?” Jack asked, trying to see beyond the knife. “You want me to beg like a dog?”

  The sorcerer nodded and there was a strange light in his eyes. It made Jack think that there was more to this concept of begging than he knew. Was there power in it? Was this how a stronger sorcerer gained power by defeating a weaker one? By stealing his dignity and debasing himself? Jack hoped he would never find out.

  “Fine, I’ll beg,” Jack growled and then clamped down on his aching tongue until his eyes watered and he felt his blood flowing warm and salty. He smiled, showing bloody teeth before he said: “Kru vah ah-tan,” the breath from his lungs erupting in an acid fog that burned as it came out.

  Too late the sorcerer saw that Jack had turned the tables on him, spewing his own paralyzing spell back into his face. Spastically, he threw himself off of Jack and tried to cover his face with his hands. He partially succeeded, so that he was blind in his remaining eye and the left side of his mouth ran downward in a slant as if his lips were melting; the partial success came at the cost of paralyzing both of his hands.

  The knife dropped from the sorcerer’s wooden fingers, landing next to Jack’s cheek, who ignored it as he stood and went for his sword. It felt good in his hand. It felt natural and he knew that what he had to do with it was just as natural. The sorcerer would have to die. He was evil. He was a danger, not just to Jack and not just to the girl he loved, but he was also a danger to the entire world.

  Jack turned back to the sorcerer and saw him huddled over his own sword and already there was blood in his palm. He was trying to work another spell—yes, he was dangerous and yes, he would have to be put down. That’s how Jack had to think of it. He was a rabid dog and had to be put down.

  And as a reward he would gain from the man’s death. What didn’t kill him only made him stronger, and he had to get stronger. Robert was gaining strength every day and Jack had to keep up.

  These were the excuses he made as he advanced on the sorcerer, coming up from behind, his sword raised. The blade was no longer blessed; now it was the tool of an executioner.

  The sorcerer, even inches from his death, was a dangerous thing. Blood dripped from his slack hand as he spoke magic: “Kru vah…”

  He wasn’t quick enough and Jack took his head from his shoulder, with the spell half spoken. Sadly, it felt good to Jack. The swing had been one of those perfect swings that ballplayers talked about. The blade had hit that beautiful “sweet spot” and the sorcerer’s head flew.

  Chapter 27

  Tours, France

  Cynthia Childs

  The last clear thing Cyn remembered before the crash was seeing Jack jump out of the helicopter. The sight stopped her heart dead in her chest, while her skin flared with a thousand electric pin-pricks—she had just watched her love throw himself to his death.

  Her mind couldn’t understand what her eyes had shown it and was still trying to make some sense of what had just happened when her body reacted on its own. Without concern for the danger, she threw herself to the edge of the copter and for a moment had to search for Jack, sure that he’d still be falling, and sure that she had been only quick enough to see him splat on the ground.

  Except he wasn’t falling or splatting, or dying. He was far below her already standing with sword in hand. It was as if he hadn’t been sitting in the helicopter the moment before. She remembered saying: “What the hell?” And she remembered blinking in confusion as she tried to make sense of what was happening, and she remembered Jack fighting against someone who was full of shadows.

  And the next thing she knew, the little priest who had been on the copter with them was smiling into her eyes. He seemed to float above Cyn.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice hazy and yet able to cut through the sound of alarms blaring from all around them. There was something wrong with the helicopter, but she couldn’t see what. Her view of her surroundings was strange and dark as if she had been put in a box.

  “Cynthia, are you okay?” Gomez asked, again, louder, now. She should have been asking him that question. The priest…Father Gomez was bleeding from a gash in his scalp. Blood had drenched the side of his head, and his face, in contrast seemed very pale.

  Cyn thought that she was fine, only the second she tried to shift from what was beginning to feel like a very awkward position, a bolt of electric agony went up her spine. The pain was so unexpected that it made her cry out and she really looked around for the first time, well she looked as much as she was able to.

  The copter had corkscrewed into the ground and was now laid over, not just on its side, but also with its nose pointing downward. Cyn found herself in the cockpit, stuffed in the footwell of the copilot’s seat. Where he was, she didn’t know. The pilot was next to her, still in his chair, his head caved in on one side. One of his eyes
dangled from its socket by a ribbon of something red and gory. It stared at her.

  “My back,” she gasped. The pain had her eyes watering, but in spite of the agony, all she could think about was Jack…and the co-pilot; where were they? And what was the red mess all over the control panel. And where was everyone else? She tried to pull herself up, but then she saw that her right wrist was cocked at an ugly angle; she stared at the fracture as if seeing someone else’s hand.

  Father Gomez touched her wrist, lightly. “You are injured and in need of the Lord’s blessing.” He closed his eyes and his touch became warm and soothing, taking away the pain that was grinding along her nerves. His lips moved in prayer, and it was a moment before she realized that he trying to heal her.

  That wasn’t something she could allow. Jack was out there, possibly fighting for his life, possibly injured…possibly dead. She couldn’t let the priest use up his strength on her, not until she knew what was happening with Jack. “Stop! Don’t. Just give me a hand out of here, okay?” When he hesitated, she growled: “That’s an order!”

  Since she never knew exactly where she stood in the ranking of things, she had never tried to “order” anyone about before, and so she was pleasantly surprised when the priest reluctantly agreed. “Try to slide me out of here,” she asked.

  Her position in the footwell could only be described as “knotted.” She had arms and legs going this way and that, while her body was bent and contorted and in hellacious pain. And it was with a mental strength she wasn’t normally known for that she came out of the crushed-in spot without screaming. The pain was immense, but she knew that one peep out of her and the priest would heal her, wasting his precious power on her instead of saving it for Jack or any of the others.

  As far as she was concerned, she should be the last person healed. Everyone else had important jobs within the squads, while officially all she ever did was act as bait for demons, which was something a chimp could be trained to do. Yes, it was true that she was also the only person who could keep Jack safe from himself, and it was also true that she was the only person who could keep the world safe from Jack. And yet that could be done with a stiff back. When she tried to stand, she realized that her condition was beyond simply being stiff.