This scenario was so vivid that it almost felt like a Glimpse. Like I was seeing a possible future that would never come to pass. I shuddered. Was I able to do that? See potential realities? See the things that should have come to pass when I’d lost the Urisk?
“Corinthos,” Xavier said. “Are you even paying attention?”
“Sorry,” I said, giving myself a shake. “What’d you say?”
“I said we can’t afford any delays. Can you keep a telekinetic shield up over us as we move forward?”
“For a little while, yes. How far are we from the target?”
“One point three miles,” Croatoan said. “We have just under five hours to reach it.”
“I can’t keep the shield up indefinitely,” I said to Xavier. “But I’ll keep it up when we’re out in the open like this.”
“That will have to do. Jacob, is the Infant all right?”
“I am well,” Cynthia replied as Jake settled her back into her harness. “And my name is Cynthia.”
Xavier ignored her comment and gestured for us to keep moving. We were following Croatoan’s green guidance beam again moments later. I didn’t actually raise a shield, though. Using the Urisk’s powers would further fracture reality and time, and I didn’t want to use them unless I absolutely had to. I kept my eyes on the sky and gave a heavy sigh of relief when we finally came into an area of forest canopy. The ground was bare of snow, but still squished under our feet. We’d gone maybe half a mile when Croatoan said, “There are twelve undead watching us. They are currently invisible, but they are in three groups. One to our left, another to our right, and a third coming up behind us.”
“Can you compel them away?” I asked.
“I already have, several times,” Croatoan said irritably. “It’s as if someone is redirecting them back onto our path.”
Xavier stopped. “Can you gain any other insight from them? Like what’s redirecting them?”
“No,” Croatoan said. “All I know is I tell them to move along, to forget they’ve seen us, and send them off in the opposite direction. And then, a minute or two later, they’re back with us.”
“I don’t suppose they’re re-catching our scent and getting curious about us?” I asked.
“I might accept that if one of the groups wasn’t upwind of us,” Croatoan replied. “No, this is something else.”
I looked at the inquisitor. “What do you say, Xavier? Do we force a confrontation or do we roll with this?”
Xavier’s brow furrowed. “Croatoan, can you scramble their minds more thoroughly? Command them to go to sleep or start fighting one another instead of just walking away?”
“Sleep, no. The undead do not sleep. As for your other suggestion…” He trailed off, and then there was a sound like tree branches breaking and heavy grunts from all around us. “Yes, I can do that.”
“Are they dispatched?” Xavier asked.
“Not entirely. I believe there are several survivors, but they will not be in any condition to continue following us. Now then, we are less than a mile from our destination. Let us continue, post haste.”
A thin fog rose from the swamp the closer we go to the Legion of Doom. We were maybe half a mile out when Croatoan said, “More undead again.”
“Bukwus?” Xavier asked.
“Yes, and something else. A presence I’ve not felt since…” He trailed off, leaving me to struggle against making Star Wars quotes.
Several forms appeared in the fog. Ten, twenty, thirty. They were closing in on us from all sides. The bukwus came forward, close enough that we could make out their shapes, but not close enough to see their features. A shorter form appeared in the mist and moved toward us. He came further than the bukwus and grinned broadly.
“Hello, Caulborn.”
“Asshat,” I greeted. “Sorry, I mean, Treggen.”
“Vincent Corinthos, eloquent as always. And you’ve brought Jake, oh, and our dearest Inquisitor Xavier.” He squinted at Xavier’s briefcase. “Croatoan? Ah, that explains why the bukwus kept wandering off every time I told them to follow you. For a moment, I thought there was something wrong with my device.” A thin metal band encircled Treggen’s head, a faint yellow light coming from it. “A prototype that Dr. Leevan developed before you fed her to that vampire, Corinthos. While it’s not as potent as what Herr Herscher could do, it’s more than sufficient to compel these bukwus to do my bidding.”
“How did you know we were coming here?” I demanded. Sure, we’d planted false information with Megan, but the intent was for Treggen to go somewhere else.
Treggen’s grin was infuriating. “Oh, come now, Corinthos. You honestly expect me to believe that an Omnicron Initiative mission isn’t going to do all their homework before entering enemy territory?”
Jake and I shared a glance. We hadn’t told Megan about the Omnicron Initiative. Treggen had obviously taken the information we’d given her, but he’d known more than just that.
Xavier was obviously wondering the same thing I was. “Omnicron missions are classified. Only a handful of Caulborn know about them,” he said. “Explain how you know about it.”
“Like you said,” Treggen said as his grin broadened. “Only a handful of Caulborn know about them. Like the Codex. Or yourself, Lead Inquisitor. And of course, Maxwell Roberts.”
I blinked. Once upon a time, Treggen had gone by the name Robert Maxwell. Was this asshole seriously spying on the Caulborn using the reverse alias? “And who might that be?” I asked.
“Oh, he’s a fascinating fellow,” Treggen replied. “He leads the Corinthos Contingency Committee, a special panel of Caulborn agents dedicated to planning ways to incapacitate or kill you. Given that this Omnicron mission involved you, Roberts was made aware of the situation.”
“So are you Roberts?” I asked. “Or is his name just an amazing coincidence?”
“Oh, Corinthos,” Treggen chuckled. “I made the mistake of revealing all my plans to you once before. I will not make the same mistake again. The bukwus here are going to kill you all, and then Sakave will come back to this realm. He has already promised me power and dominion over the Bright Side. And that’s why I can’t have your merry little band traipsing about the swamp.”
“Traipsing?” I asked. “Seriously? Dude, look at the ground. Does this look traipsable?”
“Enough of your mouth, Corinthos.” With that, Treggen ducked back into the fog, and the bukwus surged forward. Several of them vanished. I decided that was a great idea and tapped a bit of the kobolds’ faith to turn invisible, too. Beams of red light burst forth from Croatoan, striking the bukwus that were visible. Those froze, then staggered a few steps backward before taking a few steps forward. They repeated this several times, and it was like watching some bizarre 1970s dance routine. Croatoan and Treggen must’ve been fighting for mental control of them. That of course, gave Xavier time to shoot them.
I sent out tendrils of telekinetic force, probing for invisible undead. I found one sneaking up on Jake from behind and blasted it with a pyrokinetic lance. The creature became visible as it died, a hole the size of a soccer ball in its chest.
Another pseudo Glimpse appeared in my mind. Cynthia, being crushed by the bukwus’s giant hands, Jake spinning around and crushing the creature’s windpipe—
I forced the vision away. I needed to focus on the now, on the real, not on what might have been. Jesus, was this what it was like for my father, always looking both forward and backward in time?
Jake fired a round and another bukwus dropped. His shotgun roared over and over again as he pumped and fired, but the creatures kept coming. Treggen must’ve been compelling all of them, the same way I could reach out and gather rats and crows. Crows. I could compel crows. Could I compel thunderbirds?
I reached out and found one nesting not
far away, watching the battle. I seized control of its mind and forced it to make a strafing run into the bukwus that were rushing Jake. The giant bird’s talons raked through the undead flesh and toppled them backward. One of the bukwus grabbed the thunderbird’s wing and tore it free of the bird’s body. The pain that raced through our psychic connection staggered me, and I lost my mental grip on the bird as it died. Warmth ran on my upper lip, and I brushed away blood. Okay, that had not been one of my better ideas.
I looked around. We needed to end this fast. Croatoan could compel the bukwus to leave us alone, but in order for that to work, I needed to take Treggen out of the equation. I tapped a bit of the Urisk’s faith and used pyrokinesis to burn away some of the fog, trying to reveal Treggen’s position. After I’d cleared a thirty – or forty-foot radius, the bastard finally came into view. Still invisible, I snuck up behind him, doing my best to keep quiet.
My switchblade dropped into my hand, and with the satisfying snikt of its blade popping open, I drove the Olympian steel between Treggen’s shoulder blades. He jolted, then sank to his knees. I ripped the headband off of him and crushed it telekinetically. “That was for the Urisk, asshole,” I hissed in his ear as I became visible. “And this is for me.” I pulled the knife free and drove it into his ear. This man had caused the deaths of thousands of my people. He had kidnapped and killed a fellow agent, Miguel Gomez. He had kidnapped dozens of other paranormals, experimented on them, and used their corpses to create a zombie army with a weaponized virus. And he was responsible for creating the flower that had driven its way into Megan, and caused me to make that stupid promise.
To say I wanted this man dead would be an understatement. I hadn’t realized just how badly I wanted that until Jake was pulling me up off of Treggen’s body. My arm was sore and my fingers were going numb. I looked down at the mutilated corpse on the ground. There must’ve been thirty or forty stab wounds all over Treggen’s chest. The glowing blue steel of my knife dripped with blood, and I was covered in splatter.
Vincent, calm yourself, Jake sent. He is dead. It is over.
Treggen’s body suddenly turned to dust, just like what I’d seen happen earlier. “No, Jake,” I said, my voice sounding harsh to my own ears. “I don’t think it is. And I swear I will kill that man as many times as it takes to make him stay dead.”
Cynthia’s tiny metal hand reached out and rested on my shoulder. “Anger clouds your judgment, Vincent Corinthos. Clear your mind.”
I let out a ragged breath and ran a blood-splattered hand through my hair. A bit of the red film faded from my vision. “Right,” I said, wiping my knife on the remains of Treggen’s suit. His corpse was gone, but the clothes remained.
“Where is Treggen?” Xavier asked.
“Dispatched,” I replied. “I don’t think he’s dead, though. This is the second time I’ve seen his body collapse into a pile of ash.” I looked at the leader of the Inquisitors. “Did you ever meet this Maxwell Roberts?”
“No,” Xavier replied. “But once we have cell service again, I’m definitely making some inquiries. If this man has somehow wormed his way into Dublin, then the Codex and the Care Taker need to be warned.”
“Hey, Croatoan,” I called to Xavier’s briefcase. “Treggen sounded like he knew you, and you said you sensed something just before he showed up. Care to fill us in?”
The sentient bowling ball sighed. “Treggen was a sort of problem solver for Sakave, hundreds of years ago. Sometimes, there would be potential uprisings, places where the risk of defeat would be too great for Sakave’s forces. Sakave would contact Treggen, and then those forces would disappear. Sakave had us work together, me performing analyses of threats, and Treggen executing them.”
I thought back to what Wheatson had told me earlier about Treggen. So Treggen had undone events in time so that certain people never existed. Wheatson must not have known he was playing Terminator on behalf of Sakave, though. So what did Treggen get out of it?
“However, Treggen vanished shortly before you and I met, Corinthos. None of Sakave’s minions could locate the man, and we believed that perhaps he’d been killed.”
Wheatson had said Treggen vanished when the Tempus caught wise to what he was doing. But where do you hide from people who could follow you any where, or any when, you could run to?
“Did Treggen have this disposable body trick back when you knew him, Croatoan?”
“No,” the bowling ball replied. “That is new.”
“Let’s hurry,” Xavier said. “If we can get to the locus before this Treggen character can recover, we may still be able to reinforce reality and get out of here.”
That seemed like a good idea, and so we found ourselves hustling through the swamp once more. There weren’t any more thunderbird attacks, and Croatoan didn’t detect any bukwus following us. The Legion of Doom building appeared through the fog in front of us, and I let out a sigh of relief. All we had to do now was let Cynthia do her thing.
Jake knelt down and eased Cynthia off his back. The little robot girl took a hesitant step on the soggy ground, dirt and muck oozing around her metal toes.
All right, Cynthia, I heard Jake say. You know what to do.
Cynthia nodded and stretched her arms out wide, like she was preparing to hug the Legion of Doom building.
That’s when someone shot her in the back of the head.
Chapter 12
Against fang and claw, the paladin will stand. Against fang and claw the paladin will fall. None can stand against that darkness, save one who is made of it herself.
—From the Dodici Prophecy, as translated by Stranger Wolfram
It happened so fast that for a moment, we were all too stunned to react. Cynthia was on the ground, and the cogs and gears that I could see through the holes in her skin whirred drunkenly. Time slowed down for me. Now that I had the chance to look, there was a bullet lodged in the back of her skull, but it hadn’t penetrated.
I sensed extradimensional energy, not the signature of a portal, but the presence of a phasilion. Treggen’s pet Grenlori was here. That shot must’ve come through the phasilion, and now I was willing to bet Treggen had other forces about to rush through.
Before Jake could do anything to help Cynthia, something grabbed him from behind and slapped a muddy ooze over his mouth. It clung there, rippling like a living thing, preventing him from speaking or breathing. His bukwus assailant, which had become visible once it had applied the muck, obviously didn’t realize Jake didn’t need to do either. Jake spun and punched the bukwus so hard in the mouth that its jaw tore free of its skull. The creature let out a sound of agonizing pain, but Jake wasn’t done. His massive fists were like pile drivers, crushing the bukwus’s ribs and facial bones. When he was done, what was left was just red paste.
More bukwus began coming out of the fog. As Croatoan sent out beams of red light to counter-command them, a thunderbird swooped down and tore the briefcase from Xavier’s hand. There was a wet popping sound, and the inquisitor screamed and clutched his wrist; it took me a second to realize that his hand had been completely torn off. The thunderbird hadn’t been screwing around; it wanted to make absolutely sure we lost Croatoan. I cursed. Treggen had multiple bodies, why not multiple compulsion headbands? Fifty bucks said the bastard was compelling the thunderbird and the bukwus.
I grabbed Xavier’s stump and channeled a tiny bit of the kobolds’ faith to stop the bleeding and seal the wound. If we lived through this, I might be able to regrow the limb for him, but there wasn’t time for such a delicate process now.
There were a handful of nirrin and a dozen bukwus surrounding us, and three more of the undead sasquatch were pinning Jake to the ground. They’d knocked the big man down, and now he had no leverage to fight with. Xavier was pale, probably going into shock, Cynthia was down, and there was no sign of the thunderbird that had made
off with Croatoan. Things were looking bad for the home team.
“Ah, Vincent Corinthos,” a familiar voice hissed from the fog. “I see you have returned to us.” Harliss stepped into view, Treggen at his side. The bastard actually smiled at me.
“Perhaps now you will take my lord’s offer seriously,” Harliss said. “Sakave is still interested in having you as one of his generals. All you need to do is restore the Urisk to their normal state. Restore them, and perhaps Sakave will even put you at the head of his armies.”
“Wow, bargaining with me. It must sting to not just be able to have dipshit there”—I pointed at Treggen—“unmake me, like he did so many of Sakave’s other enemies.” Then I turned to Treggen. “Running away from the Chroniclers cost you your powers, so now you’re just an asshole in a suit. Oh, and there’s the fact that I’m a deity with ties to time, so you couldn’t unmake me even if you still had that fancy watch. Man, that must piss you off to no end, huh? Knowing that even at the height of your power, you couldn’t touch me.”
Faster than I could blink, Treggen produced a handgun and shot me in the knee. I screamed in pain and dropped to the ground, clutching my leg. Treggen sauntered over to me and pressed the gun to my head. “Corinthos, you are one arrogant little shit. You’re right, I wouldn’t be able unmake someone like you, couldn’t rewrite time around you. But here, in this swamp, you’re not what you are on the Bright Side. You’ve got powers, but you’re not bulletproof. So, care to rethink your position on anything?”
“Treggen,” Harliss said sternly. “Sakave has claimed this man’s life. Do not overstep your position.”
Treggen pressed his lips together, then gave a little shrug. The gun vanished from his hand. Literally disappeared into thin air. It was like watching Megan store something in her extradimensional shoebox. I filed that away for later. Treggen held out his thumb and forefinger as if they were a gun, pointed it at me, and pulled an imaginary trigger. “Boom, little man,” he whispered, before standing up and rejoining Harliss.
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