Dire Destiny of Ours

by John Corwin

  Thomas issued several orders through his communications pendant and addressed us. "We have twelve functioning omniarches including three inside the Queens Gate way station." He turned to Ketiss. "We'll send your troops through the arch in Colossus Stadium straight to Queens Gate. From there, my people will coordinate your travel via omniarches."

  A young Templar entered the room and saluted Thomas. "Orders, sir?"

  "Escort Legiaros Ketiss to the omniarch and see that he gets to Colossus Stadium." Thomas gave Ketiss an appraising look. "Do you think your troops are ready to fight right now?"

  Ketiss nodded. "The journey was long, but we're ready to fight for Eden."

  "Very well." Thomas saluted him. "We'll meet you at the rendezvous point."

  Ketiss left with the Templar soldier. Thomas quickly coordinated with the other factions. The lycan and felycans were encamped at El Dorado with the Blue Cloaks. Most of the Daemos were in the town of Queens Gate in the valley between Arcane University and Science Academy, much to the dismay of the local citizenry.

  Queens Gate was populated primarily by Arcanes. After Cyphanis Rax had taken over the Arcane Council, hundreds of citizens had gone missing. We suspected they'd been made political prisoners and moved elsewhere. I hoped Kanaan was having luck finding where they were. In the meantime, all the empty homes were providing temporary lodging for the Daemos.

  "I'll rally the Daemos and await travel coordination in the Queens Gate way station," Dad said.

  Nightliss entered the war room. Her eyes were bloodshot and the color hadn't fully returned to her face. She came up to me. "Why wasn't I told about this meeting?"

  "You need to rest," I said.

  She poked me in the chest. "So do you."

  I pulled her to the side. "Daelissa is moving on Atlanta. We don't have time to argue about this now."

  Her eyes widened. "Why would she attack Atlanta?"

  "That's what I want to know." I motioned Bella to us.

  "Nightliss, what are you doing out of bed?" Bella made a tsking sound.

  By now, the room was nearly empty.

  "Justin." Thomas pointed to a red line and a blue line on a holographic map hovering above the table. "We're assembling at the blue line. Perhaps you should leave from the Queens Gate omniarch."

  Since I didn't have an image of the destination, I couldn't use the omniarch here to reach the rendezvous. "I will." I saw how close the red line was to the Atlanta airport. "Why is Daelissa attacking Atlanta? It doesn't make any tactical sense."

  "I received word that the Exorcists have activated their covert agents in Washington D.C. and other centers of government around the world. It would seem she's preparing to launch a political offensive." Thomas's eyes seemed to gaze into the distance. "I think her strategy in this attack is twofold. First, she plans to show the world what she's capable of. Secondly, she knows you and I call the Atlanta area home and will rise to defend it."

  I pshawed. "We'd defend any city threatened by her."

  "True, but she likely believes this attack guarantees we'll send everything against her."

  I almost asked why she'd want to provoke us but it didn't take long for me to see the underlying strategy. "She probably knows something about our Darkling army. She knows we're still recovering from the last battle." I tapped a finger to my chin. "She's had over a week for her fresh Brightling troops to feed on humans while the Darklings have just arrived." I deactivated the map holograph and tucked my arcphone back into my pocket. "Daelissa knows she can beat us right now. If we had time to supercharge the troops, it might be a different story."

  "That leaves us with few possibilities," Thomas said. "Either we fight her now and do our best to survive, or we prepare for the long term and let Atlanta fall."

  I pondered the idea. Atlanta is my home! My inner demon growled like a dog defending its territory. No, I couldn't stand by and do nothing. Besides, there were other reasons to defend my home turf. "By the time we prepare for the long haul, Daelissa's political operatives might have taken control of major governments." I shook my head. "We could be fighting the nom military before long."

  "That is a possibility." Thomas gave me a grim look. "I spoke with McLean about possible Illuminati help."

  "The last time I talked to him he said they had a new leader who was pulling the organization back together."

  "That's why I spoke with him." He picked up the dagger he'd handed to Ketiss earlier and sheathed it. "Your father has also activated the Daemos operatives in various world governments. I can only imagine the brutal games of espionage playing out at high levels."

  "One thing is for sure," I told him. "The world will be a very different place a few hours from now."

  "I'm afraid you're right." Thomas sighed. "The Custodians are attempting to manufacture another evacuation, but there simply isn't time to clear a major metropolitan area."

  "Fausta is going to pop a blood vessel before this is over." Once a master-at-arms for the Colombian Templars, the feisty Italian was now in charge of keeping the noms blissfully unaware of the Overworld.

  "I should go," Thomas said. "I'll see you at the rendezvous."

  "I'll take care of Nightliss," Bella said.

  "I should be fighting!" Nightliss said.

  Shelton groaned. "Great, we get to babysit a tired angel while you have all the fun."

  Nightliss gave Shelton a dangerous look. "Do not talk about me as if I am a child."

  "Whoa, Nellie!" He gave me a desperate look. "Please let me come with you."

  "Harry Shelton, you're staying with me." Bella put her hands on her hips.

  "Sorry, pal." I actually wasn't all that sorry to keep them out of danger. "Will you keep an eye on Elyssa's condition for me?"

  "Of course," Bella said.

  I headed for the door, paused, turned around. "If she regains lucidity while I'm gone, would you let her know I love her?"

  "And then we'll hold her and squeeze her and call her George." Shelton snorted. "Go beat Daelissa to a bloody pulp, then come back here and tell Elyssa yourself."

  I managed a smile. "Sure. Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy." Without further ado, I headed to the omniarch and went through the portal with Thomas.

  We stepped through the gateway and into the Queens Gate way station. Darkling troops and Templar soldiers formed neat ranks stretching across the cavernous space and into the control room where the omniarches were located. The double doors leading into the pocket dimension hung open. Daemos streamed through. Most remained in human form, though several had morphed into larger half demons. A blue-skinned female, her tail swishing with agitation, strode past me, six large hellhounds panting at her heels.

  Every Daemos had several of the giant hounds with them, thickening the air with a sulfurous odor I honestly found somewhat pleasant. Many Darklings looked around with confusion as if trying to identify who among them had cut the cheese. Someone shouted a command and the lines of Templars and Darklings began to move. Like a giant millipede gaining speed, they marched faster and faster into the control room.

  Back when we'd had only a couple of omniarches to use, moving so many troops would've taken at least an hour. With the four in operation here, the troops sped through in a quarter of the time.

  Thomas joined the other commanders and raced through after the troops. I detoured to the Templar supply depot and took a high-performance flying carpet. As I entered the control room and headed for the nearest portal, I couldn't help but feel that I'd forgotten something. I stepped through the shimmering gateway and emerged on a wide strip of asphalt outside a large dilapidated warehouse. I unrolled the flying carpet, hopped on it, and levitated it a few yards to survey the surroundings.

  It suddenly occurred to me why I felt as if I'd left something behind, or rather, someone. Elyssa was almost always by my side and now she wasn't. I kept expecting to feel her arms wrap around my waist, or to hear her joke about the oncoming danger to alleviate tension. The lack of her presence made me
feel uncertain. Incomplete.

  With some effort, I tucked away the sadness. Elyssa is alive! All I had to do was win this battle and I could go home to her. I was going to turn this lemon Daelissa was trying to shove down our throats into a giant can of lemon whoop-ass.

  I took a deep breath and returned my thoughts to the battle ahead. Large warehouses and other industrial buildings occupied the landscape. Our forces assembled in a wide but empty parking lot. Weeds and grass grew between the latticework of cracks in the old gray asphalt. The red brick buildings around us looked as though they hadn't seen use for quite some time. According to the map on my phone, we were on the industrialized southwest side of town. The airport was less than a couple of miles to the northeast.

  A cold breeze stirred the long weeds in the asphalt. Dark gray clouds above threatened rain. The thunderous sound of a jet taking off rumbled in the air.

  A trumpet sounded from below. I looked down as the large rectangular command platform rose from the ground. Thomas and the other Templar commanders stood around a table in the center of it. A holographic image of the battleground hovered before them. Coordinators manned stations arranged in a circle around the core.

  I looked to the southwest as a great crackling sound split the air followed by a thud. In the distance, I made out the great black humanoid shape of a stone golem wading through the forest around Thunder Rock. It looked almost like a person wading through chest-high marsh grass, except in this case, it was pushing through trees. The onyx goliath stood at least three stories high. I couldn't see the other golems the scouts had sighted, which made me think they must be walking in single file. The swath of destruction they were creating was more than enough for an army to march through.

  The Darklings deployed cloudlets and hovered a few feet off the ground. Blue Cloaks rose on flying carpets. Templar Arcanes pushed hovering siege engines into place and loaded them with aether crucibles that glowed with destructive energy. Templar soldiers formed lines with the Darkling infantry. Lycans and felycans split into packs mixed with feline and canine shifters. As they morphed into animal form, the packs vanished into the surroundings, ready to flank the enemy once they showed their faces. Daemos forces split in half and spread to the outer edges of the army as well. I lost count of the hellhounds and hoped they were enough.

  Fjoeruss's army of gray men gathered near the back of the army. I saw their master hovering over them on a flying carpet. They divided into three platoons by specialization. He'd designed some to be proficient in countering magic while others were more deadly in the physical sense. Each one of the gray-skinned golems looked the spitting image of their creator. Fjoeruss claimed to have giant and experimental golems of his own, but they were nowhere to be seen.

  I navigated my carpet to the Templar command platform and got Thomas's attention. "Do we have any giant golems to counter theirs?"

  "We have construction golems, but they're not outfitted for combat," he replied. "Our Arcanes simply haven't had the time to construct anything like those."

  "What about Fjoeruss's experimental golems?"

  "The only way to get them here would be using an Obsidian Arch." Thomas tapped something on his arctablet. "My scouts report that the Kobol Prison Obsidian Arch is still functional, but there's a deployment of enemy soldiers guarding it. We can't spare enough people to take it."

  Daelissa had been using Kobol Prison to revive husked Seraphim. Though a malaether crucible—the magical equivalent of a small nuclear warhead—had exploded there, it seemed it hadn't put her out of business.

  "How large a force?" I asked.

  "About three hundred units consisting of vampires, battle mages, and a few dozen Nazdal that must have survived the battle at the Grand Nexus." He shook his head. "I'm afraid we'll have to do this without the benefit of Fjoeruss's battle golems." He looked toward the oncoming monsters. "Daelissa's seem to be standard goliath configuration with what appears to be heavily modified weaponry." He frowned. "They have some kind of crystal shards, but we're unsure of their capabilities."

  As the thunderous footsteps of the goliaths drew closer, another loud noise drew my attention. I looked behind us and saw a helicopter racing toward the giants. Judging from the bright yellow decal on the side, it was a news chopper. The aircraft abruptly swooped around and rotated. A door slid open and a large camera appeared, pointing toward us. I could only imagine what must be going through the minds of the viewers.

  "This isn't good," I said.

  One of the Templar coordinators looked up from her console and spoke to Thomas. "The Custodians have enacted a distortion spell in this area to disrupt nom communications and to conceal a large area from outside view. The helicopter shouldn't be able to transmit back to base."

  I breathed a sigh of relief. "In other words, we're not on live T.V. right now."

  "Not now," Thomas said, "but it won't prevent them from recording the incident."

  Still, a recording was more easily destroyed than convincing several million people they hadn't just seen a supernatural war erupt on the outskirts of town. A flying carpet with Custodians rose from the ground and intercepted the news chopper.

  Several hundred yards behind us, the air shimmered and crackled with orange energy. I was about to put everyone on red alert but Thomas watched it calmly. Over the next several minutes, the event repeated itself in a wide radius around us.

  Thomas seemed to sense my confusion. "That's the obfuscation spell. From the other side of the barrier, the air will look smoggy and clouded. It doesn't render everything invisible, but it should make it a lot harder to be noticed."

  "Can they interdict this zone like Thunder Rock used to be?" I asked.

  He shook his head. "True interdiction takes time and power to implement. What we're using now is the equivalent of magical duct tape."

  "Let's hope duct tape wins the day."

  Otherwise, Atlanta was in for a very nasty surprise.

  Chapter 21

  When the onyx goliath was a couple hundred yards away, four more branched off from behind it. Two goliaths went to its left while the other two went to its right. Each giant bristled with crystal shards I assumed were capable of firing destructive spells. Each had a distinct color—jade, gray, brown, and white quartz. When we'd invaded Queens Gate not long ago, Elyssa and I had counted at least ten of the monstrous creations. Either the other five weren't fully operational, or Daelissa had other plans for them.

  Part of me was relieved they weren't here. Another part of me didn't know if five more would make much of a difference. Fighting her new army would be tough enough without these monsters to deal with.

  Lanaeia, a silvery-haired sera with elfin features, flew to me on her carpet. "Is Nightliss here?"

  I shook my head. "She's still recovering from her ordeal." I looked at the soft-spoken sera. "Are you prepared to fight?"

  She looked down. "I am prepared to do what must be done."

  Mom and Ivy swooped in on a flying carpet and hovered beside me. "Those things are huge!" Ivy clapped her hands together as if they were the bestest thing she'd ever seen.

  "You realize they're about to trample us," I said.

  "I know." She crossed her arms and gave me a look. "I'm just excited about blowing them up." She tugged on Mom's dress. "Can I ride with Justin?"

  Mom looked at me. "I don't know—"

  She jumped up and down. "Please? Pretty please? With strawberries on top?"

  I didn't like the idea of my sister being in a warzone, but it wasn't like this was her first battle. She was also a lot stronger than she looked. I took her hand and helped her over to my carpet. "Come on over, sis."

  Ivy gripped me in a tight hug. "Thanks, bro!"

  Lanaeia regarded Mom uncertainly. "Might I ride with you, Alysea? I believe we would do better as a team."

  Mom nodded. "Of course." She reached over and touched my arm. "Be careful, son."

  Lanaeia stepped onto Mom's carpet and rolled hers up.

/>   As the goliaths drew closer, I saw movement on their shoulders and realized there were soldiers piggybacking on the lumbering stone giants. More precisely, the archangels perched there. The onyx golem destroyed the tree line at the edge of the parking lot with its massive flat feet and stopped. The other goliaths drew even with it and halted.

  Behind the goliaths, infantry spread into formations. Battle mages and Exorcists hovered in the air aboard flying carpets.

  A lone figure in white stood atop the onyx giant. She spoke in a voice enhanced by an amplification spell. "Justin Slade, you poor stupid creature. Do you really think your feeble forces can stop mine?"

  I cast an amplification spell of my own and replied. "How's your nose, Daelissa? I hope it healed crooked after I punched you in the face."

  "Petty boy." She made a clicking sound with her tongue. "You were lucky at our last encounter. Now I see you've truly scraped the gutter and dredged up scum to replace all those soldiers you lost the last time you dared fight me." She made a spitting sound. "I will give your Darklings a chance to bow before me, their true goddess. If they surrender now, I will be merciful to them and their speck of land in Seraphina."

  "I have a better idea," I called back. "Why don't you surrender now and I promise not to hand you over to the Darklings so they can beat the crap out of you for being such a bitch to them all these millennia?"

  Daelissa raised her hands in a magnanimous gesture and ignored me. "I will extend this amnesty to all who abandon this fool child and bow before me. Simply come before me and drop to your knees. Acknowledge me as your one true goddess." She beamed a smile and stood there as if she'd just given everyone the greatest gift a person could give.

  "Do we get doggy treats if we're good little worshipers?" I glanced around and saw not a single person taking her up on the offer. "Here's a clue, Daelissa. Nobody likes a narcissistic bully who thinks they own the world."

  "If that's true, how did she get an army?" Ivy asked me in a soft voice.