Wanderers: Ragnarök

by Richard A Bamberg

  “Yeah, right,” I murmured.

  I was just in time for tonight’s main event.

  Marian’s summoning completed with a snap of power. Simultaneously, I felt the other item Beast revealed. Someone had erected a strong circle in the basement. I wasn’t positive of its location, but it had to be behind the door where Abigail kept the grimoire or immediately in front of its entrance. With her coven assembled and powering the circle, it would be a formidable feat for even a Wanderer to breach that circle.

  A flash of light, billowing black smoke, and the stink of the pit announced the arrival of Marian’s guest. A monstrously butt-ugly demon at least twelve feet tall stepped out of the smoke and took in his surroundings. Great curved horns protruded from his forehead, his naked, obsidian skin reflected the light and the asphalt indented where he tread. Smoke rose from his cloven footprints and the odor of brimstone assailed the night.

  I felt a chill course through me. A Named Demon. The shit was really going to hit the fan. The runts I’d been fighting this week might have had names, most semi-intelligent demons have some kind of name, but this creature had a Name.

  Hell had come to earth.

  The demon turned to his summoner and Marian raised a single finger to point at the building I stood on. “Oh, great Surgat, the three sacrifices you demanded have been completed. Now I request the favor you promised.”

  Surgat’s voice grated like boulders in a cement mixer. “Your gifts have been duly noted, witch. But don’t waste my time; what is it you want?”

  “In the basement of that building is a grimoire that I claim as mine. Bring it to me and your debt will be satisfied.”

  Surgat turned his massive head toward the entrance to Nuevo Retro. He stared at the building for a few moments, and then nodded. “Your request is granted, witch.”

  About here, I had a choice. I could let Surgat fight Abigail and her coven for the grimoire or I could try to stop him, which probably gave me a fifty-fifty chance, at best, of surviving the battle. To keep the single page of the grimoire from being used to open the Gates, I just had to take the book away from Marian once Surgat gave it to her. I liked my odds in that. It was the smart choice. Yep, Surgat looked more than capable of busting through Abigail’s coven, and then he’d give the grimoire to Marian. Mission completed, Surgat would return to his dimension. It was an easy choice. Only a fool would try to go up against a Named Demon when there was a simpler path.

  Hell.

  I started my sling to spinning and activated my favorite tat.

  Surgat noticed and turned his eyes my way. Bloodshot didn’t begin to describe them.

  I loosed my stone.

  Surgat waved a hand the size of a Thanksgiving turkey in my direction and my rock changed course to smash a gaping hole in the sidewalk.

  Okay, if at first…

  Surgat waved his hand again in a threatening gesture and I triggered my watch’s shield. A blast of fire exploded the parapet in front of me, hit my shield, and drove me backward through the air and off the roof.

  The son of a bitch thought he was a badass. Okay, I agreed with his assessment, but I still had a few tricks.

  I summoned the wind and slowed my fall before I reached the alley’s pavement. If that blast were any indication, Surgat would be through Abigail’s coven before I could interfere again. But the battle wasn’t about keeping Surgat from getting the grimoire. It was making sure Marian didn’t get to use it to open the gates.

  A few dozen panicked concert goers shied away from me as I landed, but my arrival did not slow down their haste to be anywhere other than downtown Huntsville.

  I put another iron bearing in my sling and started it spinning.

  The mystery contestant hadn’t arrived yet and I was betting that it was this unknown mage who wanted to open the Gates. Marian might kick butt on the local scene, but she wasn’t of the caliber to contemplate Ragnarök. No, she must have another deal to supply the page to the missing player in return for support in the battle.

  I released my bullet straight up and triggered the tat. Magical lightning engulfed the little bullet in incandescent fury that lit the alley as though the sun had risen early. I summoned the wind and pushed the bullet higher and faster, never stopping the onslaught of magic into the ball bearing.

  I wound my sling back around my wrist, drew out my whistle, and summoned Beast.

  He landed beside me before I could put the whistle back in my shirt.

  “What kept you?” I asked and climbed onto his back.

  “Why didn’t you stay where I put you?” he retorted.

  “It had a lousy view. Drop me in the street out front.”

  We flew up and over the building. I pointed to a spot on the lawn around the courthouse, a good twenty yards behind Marian.

  She spotted us, we were pretty obvious and started a spell.

  Surgat was not outside and an enormous hole where the door to Nuevo Retro had stood told me he was wasting no time.

  “Duck,” Beast growled and swung sideways as a massive branch parted the air where I’d been. I tightened my grip on his mane as he rolled to avoid another branch. At first, I thought Marian was flinging the limbs at us, but then I saw they were still attached to a great red maple tree that she had animated.

  “Set me down and get out of the way,” I commanded.

  “Wouldn’t you rather just drop from here?” Beast asked.

  I didn’t reply and he lit out of reach of the tree long enough for me to scramble off his back. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I fired up my shield and turned to face the maple.

  There’s something bizarre about your life when you find yourself fighting a fifty-foot tall, animated maple tree.

  The tree swung a branch down and my shield shook with the impact. Grass and dirt exploded around me as the force of the blow drove me three feet into the ground like a two hundred pound spike.

  I raised my left arm and triggered the tat around my bicep. It burned blazing orange-red and flames leapt from my left hand to engulf the tree.

  I held the flame for a few seconds to make sure the entire tree was alight and then killed the tat’s glow.

  A flaming bough slammed into my shield from the side and for the third time that night, I was airborne.

  I smashed into the glass side of the courthouse a second later and caromed off filing cabinets, desks, and partitions until I came to a stop against an elevator door. Even my shield hadn’t blocked all of the kinetic energy in that flaming limb; I was going to be black and blue tomorrow. Hell, if there was a tomorrow for me.

  I picked myself up and ran back through the destroyed offices until I reached the window.

  The maple tree was an enormous bonfire and either Marian’s spell had run out of energy or my flame had consumed enough of the tree to kill it. Even a Wiccan can’t animate a dead tree.

  Marian was looking away from me and I saw why at once. Surgat was emerging from the hole he’d made in the building and he carried a thick leather book that nearly vanished inside his massive fist.

  I dropped the short distance to the grass and looked up. Far overhead a bright star burned. I reached for it with my wind and pulled it back toward the earth.

  Now, I just needed to keep Surgat distracted until my comet arrived.

  I started toward a point opposite Surgat and behind Marian. My tat glowed golden as I summoned lightning again.

  Surgat roared when the lightning struck him. Marian reached toward him, her fingers questing for the grimoire, but she dared not reach outside her circle.

  The lightning was giving Surgat trouble, but he still walked toward Marian. He seemed more interested in completing his assignment than duking it out. Well, that was fine by me.

  I felt for energy and felt buried power cables beneath the street. Without letting my lightning tat go dark, I braced myself and slammed my forearms together, simultaneously triggering my tat.

  The ground, sidewalk, and pavement split back as my sp
ell reached for the power conduits beneath the ground. The pavement beneath Marian’s circle split open destroying her circle and leaving her vulnerable. At the same time, the conduit ruptured and my lightning reached down into the crevice and joined with the high voltage line.

  Every light around the square went dark, but the blazing maple was bright enough for us to continue the fight without sensory augmentation.

  I summoned the high voltage AC current back up the lightning’s path and let the two combine on Surgat.

  He screamed.

  In rage, he drew back the grimoire and hurled it at Marian. The heavy book caught her in the chest and knocked her thirty feet back to land near my feet.

  Surgat pointed a massive finger at me and yelled with a voice that even God would appreciate. The remaining windows at my back shattered. “Enough, Wanderer. Stop your lightning; I’ve no fight with you tonight.”

  The demon was right. Once the grimoire touched Marian, Surgat’s obligation to her was over and he was free to leave.

  I canceled the lightning and the flow of electricity from the conduit. I sighed and reached for Marian and the grimoire; it looked like I’d won another one.

  The night suddenly brightened to daylight.

  Oh, shit.

  I looked up in time to see my little iron bearing, now a blazing comet of magical energy flash down. Surgat had time to raise one hand and start a spell.

  The comet struck his upraised hand.

  There was a blinding flash and Surgat disappeared.

  The sonic boom reached the street an instant later and knocked me back into the side of the courthouse while blowing out every window for blocks around.

  I lay still for a minute gathering my strength. There had been many times over the years when I wished I’d never become a Wanderer; this was the latest.

  Canceling my shield, I struggled to my feet and walked back to Marian. She lay where Surgat had knocked her. Blood pooled around her head. I knelt beside her and placed two fingers against her throat. If she had a pulse, I couldn’t feel it.

  That’s the thing with deals with devils. They honor them to the letter of the law; apparently, Surgat’s deal was to deliver the grimoire to Marian. Without her circle to protect her, he could deliver it with whatever force he wanted.

  I glanced toward the spot my comet had struck Surgat. There was a large smoking hole where the demon had stood. I had no idea whether I’d killed him and vaporized his remains or whether he had jumped back to his world before the comet’s energy destroyed him.

  Overall, it’d been a good fight for me. I reached for the grimoire.

  I was forgetting something.

  An energy wave drove me across the street and through what used to be the front window of O’Brian’s Pub. I had time to reactivate my shield before I smacked into the massive mahogany bar.

  The other mage had arrived

  I stood myself upright once more and turned toward the street.

  A great wind swept debris around the street and the massive form of a dragon lit next to Marian’s body; a dragon, black as coal, big as a city bus, and all too familiar.

  A man sat astride the dragon’s shoulders, a full ten feet off the ground.

  He turned toward me and I recognized the man who had killed Walt. Rowle, the Night Wanderer, had come to claim the grimoire.

  CHAPTER 31

  This just kept getting better and better.

  I palmed an iron bearing from my pocket, focused more power into my watch’s shield, and walked back to the front of the bar.

  Rowle slid off the shoulder of his great beast and walked toward me.

  I dropped to the sidewalk and went to meet him.

  We stopped fifty feet apart; Marian’s body and the grimoire lay halfway between us.

  “It’s been a long time Raphael. How’ve you been?” Rowle asked.

  “I’ve been all right. You?”

  “Never better.”

  “I guess I don’t have to wonder who gave me the ass kicking last night when I was trying to save that girl’s life.”

  “You were in the way, Raphael. I couldn’t let you stop Marian or Carl from summoning Surgat. I didn’t want you to get hurt, but you Wanderers can be so stubborn.”

  “If you were helping them, why’d you need them to summon Surgat? Surely you could have breached Abigail’s defenses,” I said.

  Rowle chuckled. “Well, one would think so wouldn’t one? However, I tried to take that book from her mother long ago and found that it couldn’t be taken by just anyone. She’d placed it behind a door even I couldn’t penetrate.”

  “Get real, there’s no lock you can’t defeat,” I argued.

  “No, I’m serious. She opened a door into an alternate dimension that no human or even a Wanderer can enter. Other than Abigail, I learned that only one being had the ability to breach that door. Surgat, the Key Master.”

  “Key Master? Was he with the Gate Keeper?”

  Rowle cocked his head to the right and frowned at me. “Gatekeeper? No, there hasn’t been a Gate Keeper in millennia.”

  “Seriously? There really is someone called a Gate Keeper and Key Master? I thought that was a movie thing,” I said.

  A frown passed over Rowle’s face but didn’t stay to visit. “Movie? Oh, you mean the cinema. Your reference is obscure, but I get the impression that you’re having me on. I thought better of you, Raphael. You know I’m not fond of foolishness.”

  “I remember, Rowle. That was what I remembered most about you, no sense of humor. Of course, I haven’t lost the memory of that great beast of yours killing Walt.”

  Rowle didn’t cast even a glance back toward his familiar. “Ah, well there’s that isn’t there? Walt was too set in his ways to be persuaded to join the cause. I have higher hopes for your flexibility.”

  “Me? You think I’m going to join you?” I could never trust anything Rowle said. He played with the Night and had a couple of centuries to get good at what he did. I couldn’t trust him and I couldn’t beat him in a fair fight. So I had to think to survive.

  “I believe the odds are in my favor of swaying you. You know I could have killed you several times since Walt’s death. You were at my mercy last night. Even this witch could have taken you while you lay unconscious on the ball field.”

  “Yeah, that was puzzling. You could have let her kill me or done it yourself. Why didn’t you?”

  Rowle rolled his shoulders and gave a slight head twist. “I told you already. I expect you to join me. You’re worth far more to me than just another witch.”

  “Join you in bringing about Ragnarök? You can’t really think I’d want to see that?”

  “Certainly I do. You’ve been Fate’s bitch for forty years and you must be getting tired of her pulling your strings. Surely you’re ready to be your own man; to stand up with your backbone straight and walk the earth like the demigod you were meant to be.”

  “That sounds a little grandiose even for you, Rowle. Why are you doing this? I mean, what’s in it for you?”

  “Haven’t you seen what mankind has been doing to themselves? They’ve bred and bred until they cover the earth like fleas on a mongrel. I know you haven’t been around to see it as I have, but in two hundred plus years, I’ve watched humanity choke the planet in its waste. It’s time the other races have a chance at it again.”

  “You think they’ll do a better job of it than we have?” I asked.

  “They certainly couldn’t do a poorer one,” Rowle countered.

  “You didn’t answer my other question; what’s in it for you?”

  “Me? Well, I was thinking of England for my own. The current family has ruled long enough; it’s time for new blood.” Rowle smiled and it reached all the way to his eyes.

  “You’re kidding me? You want to rule England?”

  Rowle cocked his head, this time to the left. “Do you think I’ve set my sights too low?”

  “What is there to be left to rule after you’ve op
ened the Gates and destroyed humanity? Geez, why is it that none of the would-be world conquerors ever think things through?”

  “Really, Raphael, I’ve been planning and thinking this out for longer than you’ve been alive. The word has gone out across the dimensions and armies are gathering. That grimoire holds the first step in throwing open the Gates. You just need to decide whether you will join me in ruling a significant portion of the world or will die defending it.”

  “A significant portion? What might that be? North America perhaps?”

  Rowel laughed, but never took his eyes off me. “You do have a sense of humor; I’ll give you that much. No, Raphael, nothing as big as North America; there are just too many players to give anyone that large an area. Tell you what; I’ll give you California.”

  “California? It’s pretty and all, but I imagine the cleanup after the war would be troublesome. No, I’d have to have someplace a little less crowded, say Alaska?”

  “Why would you want that frozen place? I know; I’ll give you Texas and Colorado. You have history there.”

  “Yeah, but after hell comes to earth I’m guessing global warming is going to get wicked bad. Alaska will be tropical by then.”

  He stared at me for a moment. His lips pursed and he shook his head slowly. “Raphael, you are having me on again. You are quite the fool. I know; if you can’t be persuaded to join me then I’ll keep you around as my jester. Every king needs a fool.”

  I stared at him for a moment, wondering what I was doing dragging this out. I had the proverbial two chances of besting him. Slim and none. So what was I waiting for? Was my life really so enjoyable that I was afraid of dying? I remembered a line from an old movie, one of the main characters made the statement: “I’ve always wanted to fight a heroic battle against impossible odds.” This wasn’t the battle I would have chosen to go out on, but what the hell did I have to live for, more decades of fighting big nasties, never a family, never a choice.

  Fuck it; we all go sometime.

  I unwound my sling without taking my eyes off Rowle. He watched me with some amusement. “You still carry that silly thing? Really, Raphael, I expected you to put away your toys after I killed your mentor.”