by Scott Marcy
“FIRE!” Alex shouted and jumped to her feet. Melvin and the others rubbed their eyes and looked about. “It’s a prairie fire. Get your stuff.” They scrambled to their feet and snatched up their blankets. They stuffed them into the back of the van and jumped inside it. Alex stomped the accelerator and spun the wheel, sending dirt and rocks flying.
Melvin turned around and said, “Wait! My rental car is back there.” When flames engulfed it, he lamented, “But I didn’t get the rental insurance.” It exploded, flipped, and landed in a twisted mess of burning metal.
“The fire is ahead of us,” Lyra shouted. Alex sped down the dirt road, the flames on either side of it. When they raced through the flames, the other girls recoiled in fear and screamed. The van burst out of the flames, bouncing about on the dirt road, and when they reached pavement, Alex made a right turn for the airport.
“Look,” Kaylin said and pointed at the sky. At first, they thought it was a flock of crows, but the ill-defined black shapes confused them. “It’s those things from the mall. Hurry!”
The van sped along the road toward the airport, bouncing and drifting. “Go faster; they’re gaining on us,” Lyra said. “Put on your armor.” Alex floored the accelerator, but little more speed resulted. The girls struggled in the back to put on their armor, bumps in the road sending them flying, resulting in shouts and shrieks.
Melvin sat with his fingers interlaced and eyes fixed on the road. When they hit another bump, Kaylin toppled over and landed in his lap. He calmly said, “We’re being attacked again. Right?” When she nodded, he said, “So then no breakfast, I guess?” She shook her head and scrambled off his lap.
A roar made them grimace in pain. A black dragon dive-bombed out of a cloud and flew toward the darkness. It loosed a blast of fire at the flock of darkness and scattered them. It swept up, turned, and dove again, fire spewing from its mouth. When the van entered the highway E470, they passed the other traffic as if standing still. The dark flock attacked two 18-wheel trucks, a propane truck, and a refrigerated truck, and took over the drivers. The mutated drivers roared in rage and accelerated.
“They’re gaining on us,” Jack said.
“Somebody do something,” Alex replied.
“What?” Sterling asked.
“Shoot fire at them or something,” Alex said. “They’re almost on top of us.” She opened the back hatch and wind rushed into the van. Sterling formed a ball with her hands and a brilliant glow formed between them. She shot lightning at one of the trucks. Flames engulfed the engine and licked out the sides. When she shot a blast of fire, the truck dodged, and the flames hit the propane tanker. An explosion rocked the earth and tossed twisted wreckage into the air, showering the road with metal fragments.
Melvin sat with his fingers interlaced in deep contemplation: he wondered how his life had come to this. “Did I tell you I was an all-star player?” he said to Kaylin. She shook her head and slotted an arrow, opened the side door, and let fly at the truck. It was useless, but it made her feel better.
Melvin sighed. “I was good. I could have gone pro, but I had a back injury. They fixed my back, but by then I was too old.” When they hit another bump, Kaylin flew in the air, and Melvin caught her. He looked her in the eye and said, “I would have been rich.”
The second truck plowed through the wreckage and charged. Sterling blasted the second truck with a bolt of lightning. A highway patrolman looked up from his paperwork and searched for the source of the explosion. A second later, the van whooshed by him shooting lightning and fire jets. His mouth hung agape, and he watched them speed away. He threw the car in drive and tore onto the highway. The second truck smashed the front end off the car and spun it around in circles. The officer faced the wrong way on the highway, the airbag deflating in his lap.
The van made a right and streaked onto Peňa Boulevard, bolts of lighting and fire shooting out the back. It circled around a visitor’s parking lot, the left wheels lifting off the road. Alex sped to the right, toward “Departures and Arrivals”, and when the road went right, they went left, crossing a field, dust billowing behind them. The charred truck chased after them, shooting across the open field.
The van crashed through the chain-link fence with the truck in hot pursuit. When they rounded a hanger, they saw Sabrina. She threw up her hands and raw, white-hot energy leapt from her palm. It struck the side of the truck and bent it half. It hurtled through the air sideways and then exploded.
Chapter 16
Wings tucked by her sides, arms crossed, and a scowl on her face, Sabrina glared them. The passengers emptied out of the van and shifted about like guilty children. “This is not what I had in mind by lying low.”
“It’s not our fault,” Alex said and crossed her arms. “We slept out in a field, but they found us anyway.”
“Thankfully, you stayed out of the city, or we would have a much worse problem.” Sabrina rolled her eyes and shook her head. “You have an imp cloud after you, and they never give up the hunt. Tell me how all this came about.”
Alex cleared her throat and said, “It all started when our caravan stopped at Refuge City. We saw a brilliant light in the sky, and Air Force One flew through it ….”
“I see,” Sabrina said. “Queen Roselyn used the last of her power to bind Mortemis to the pendant. That trapped Mortemis in Razûl, so she chose death to save the lives of millions of innocent people on Eden. But you ran and brought Mortemis with you, and an entire town on Earth died.”
She cursed in ancient Elvish and began to pace. “You are Valkyrie, bound by an eternal vow: ‘I fight when others flee. I am courageous when others panic. I rush into the darkness when all others flee. I fight until my strength fails, and then I continue to fight. Neither pain, nor suffering, nor sacrifice will divert me from completing my mission. I never give up; I never fail, and even the grave cannot hold me. I am a Valkyrie — the scourge of the darkness, the defender of the innocent, and the guardian of the light. This I vow with my life, my love, and my sacred honor.’”
She closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and paused. “The entire population of Mobley, Kansas, 20,193 souls, save one, died because of your failure. You must go back and stop drathva that commands these shadow imps. First, we need to understand how you got into this mess.” She singled out Alex with a look of accusation. “I’m going to need the pendant. It records the exact moment of your departure.”
After Sterling had given her the pendant, she pressed it between the palms of her hands, and when a faint blue glow ignited, she removed her top hand. “The pendant records its entire journey.” A rotating catalog of still images appeared, and she sorted through them. Sabrina studied each still image and then selected an image of President Larson standing before the image of King Reginald the Just. A three-dimensional image, small scale, played, and she contemplated the nuances of each response.
“We must return to Razûl,” Sabrina said, and everyone but Gloria cringed. “President Larson, we cannot have two of you here. This timeline belongs to him, your former self.”
“I have to attend a peace summit in three and a half years. When Air Force One disappeared, the United States may take it as an act of war. I have to stay,” Jack said.
“You can’t,” Sabrina replied. “If the two of you met, it could annihilate the Earth. I’m sorry. They will have to find peace without you.” She said of Gloria, “History records your death in Mobley, Kansas, and we must not alter the timeline, much depends on it.”
“I just want to be with Jack,” Gloria said and squeezed his hand.
The whirr of sirens approached them. “Our time grows short, we must go.” They gathered their armor and supplies from the back of the van. When Melvin lingered near the van, she said, “That means you too. You were also reported among the dead.”
“What about my rental car?” he asked.
“You credit card has been canceled by this point, and the rental car reported stolen. However, a blurred image of you
renting it will fuel conspiracy theories for centuries to come.”
He looked about and said, “Great, everyone has armor but me. Are you sure that you don’t have a spare set in the back of that van?” They shook their heads, and Melvin said, “A weapon would be nice, a sharpened stick or something. I’m just saying. I’ve got nothing.”
Sabrina raised her right hand, closed her eyes, and chanted in a soft voice. The air around Melvin began to shimmer, like heat waves on a desert highway. Silver armor, with a black dragon crest on the breastplate, and a backpack filled with supplies appeared on Melvin. He had a heater shield strapped to his left arm and a broadsword strapped to his left hip. He drew the sword and held it before him. “Now this is what I’m talking about.”
“We must go.” Sabrina held the pendant in her right hand, and they placed their hands on top of hers. She closed her eyes and chanted in the magical tongue. Blue light flashed, and for a split second, they were formless, spread across space-time. They drew their next breath on Eden.
Chapter 17
Melvin drew in a cleansing breath and searched the darkness. His right hand brushed a rectangular object made of stone. It had grooves around the upper top edge and had something lying on it. A brilliant light illumined the chamber and caused him to shield his eyes. After they had adjusted, he saw a withered corpse upon the table and yanked his hand away from it. “Where are we?”
“The burial crypt is in Nose Mountain next to the kingdom of Razûl,” Kaylin said.
“So, I’m gonna guess not Earth,” he replied.
“No, not Earth,” Alex said.
Melvin studied the empty sarcophagus and asked, “Who built this place? Did the good guys build that to trap that shadow demon?”
“No,” Sabrina said, which surprised the others. “A more powerful drathva, probably Moloch, entombed Mortemis. It happens from time to time, usually when a follower fails his master. Moloch built the sacrificial altar in case he ever wanted to free Mortemis.”
“So Morticia was trapped here for a really long time,” Melvin said. “Is he coming back?”
“The pendant will compel him to return to Eden. He will try to take it, but we must defeat him.” Sabrina looked around the small tomb. “This cannot be the only chamber. Moloch would have built a temple to honor himself. It is there that he bound Mortemis, so it is there that we must bind him.”
“Why do I feel like there’s another side to this coin?” Melvin asked.
Sabrina looked him in the eye and said, “If we lose, your souls will join the damned in Razûl, and I will be bound in this tomb.”
Lyra put her hand on Melvin’s shoulder and said, “You won’t be there alone. We will fight for each other.” They all voiced their support.
“I’m excited. Let’s go kick some demon ass,” Melvin shouted.
As they exited the tomb, Jack spoke to Sabrina in a soft voice, “Is there some place safe where I can hide Gloria?”
“No. The only safe place is by your side,” Sabrina said.
They returned to the tunnel nexus, and Sabrina chose the widest tunnel. Water glistened off the square block walls, and terrible stench permeated the air. They crept through it, weapons ready. The soft glow of torches made the tunnel ahead of them glow as if they descended into hell.
They emerged from the tunnel and found themselves on a rectangular platform. A vast pentagon shaped chamber lay before them. It had a lower pit, five massive pillars, and a viewing area that looked down upon the pit. Daemia — monsters from the darkest pit of hell — filled the arena.
Atop pentagonal dais, a black shadow shifted and began to take shape. Wings of a bat with talons at the tips, rams horns atop its head, the hideous face of a gargoyle, a humanoid body, powerful limbs clutching obsidian “soul reapers” swords, Mortemis assumed physical form. He spread out his wings and roared. The daemia in the pit and those assembled in the viewing area cheered in response. He pointed a sword at Sabrina and said, “You will fall before me and beg for mercy, but I will show you none.”
Sabrina descended the stairs, throwing off her human form. Golden wings, silver armor decorated with gold symbols, clothed in a gown of the purest silk, skin of alabaster, eyes of burning sapphire, hands clutching “soul defender” swords, Sabrina radiated brilliant white light. “You are of the darkness, and to that darkness, you will return. I will cast you into the abyss, bound for eternity in unbreakable chains.”
“You don’t think those few, pathetic warriors can defeat my army? If I but shout at them, they will drop their weapons and flee.” Mortemis laughed and so did the daemia.
When a daemia crawled upon the platform, Melvin kicked it in the crotch and punched it in the face. The dazed creature fell backward and hit the granite floor with a fleshy thud. “You’re going down.” He shouted the soldier’s prayer, “Though all hell should assemble against me and my enemy cast curses upon me, I will defeat them in the name of God.”
Mortemis spread his wings, raised his swords, and roared in agony. “I will destroy you all, and I will use your skull as a chamber pot. Death has come for you; fall down before me and worship me.”
“Not a chance,” Melvin replied.
When Sabrina descended halfway down the stairs, she spread her wings and glowed like the sun. Mortemis and the daemia recoiled in pain. “Let it begin,” she thundered and leaped in the air. She rushed at him and brought down her swords upon him. The force knocked him backward, and he tumbled to the floor, knocking daemia aside. He scrambled to his feet and drew in seething breaths. With a scream of terror and rage, he flew back at her. They met in the air with a great crash. Flashes of light and darkness shot out from the collision of their blades.
Alex rushed down the stairs and leaped at the daemia. She brought down one of her swords and split a daemia’s skull. Black blood sprayed his comrades, stunning them. The daemia recovered and rush at her of one accord, but she fought like a mad woman: stabbed, slashed, dodged, and cut.
The others rushed down the stairs and joined her. Melvin chopped with his Claymore and cut a daemia in two. Its head flew through the air and tumbled across the floor. Lyra, Kaylin, and Alex stood with their backs to each other. The fought their way to the dais and climbed upon it.
Jack ushered Gloria into a rectangular alcove and stood at the entrance. Shield and sword raised, he slammed a daemia and chopped another. The creatures clawed and spit venom at him, but he chopped at them. “Take a knife from my belt,” he shouted to Gloria. When she hesitated, he shouted, “Do it now.” As he moved about, she grabbed one of his knives and held it with two hands. She began to cry and backed into the wall.
When one of the daemia knocked Jack aside, another appeared in the mouth of the alcove. He barred his razor sharp teeth and a proboscis shot from his mouth and stabbed at her. The knife tumbled from her hands, and she recoiled in fear. Holding out her hands, she sobbed and cringed.
Jack leaped at the daemia and chopped its neck. Black blood sprayed in his face and covered his armor. He stabbed and slashed in a craze of violence. “You will not take her from me again,” he screamed. When Gloria saw Jack’s agony and passion, she picked up the knife. When one tumbled toward her, she grimaced and stabbed it in the side. The creature roared in pain and turned toward her. She swept the blade through the air and clipped the daemia’s throat. Black blood gushed from the wound. It staggered toward her and then collapsed at her feet. After releasing its final breath, its crude sword tumbled from its hand.
Sabrina and Mortemis rained down blows upon one another. Each collision of their blades caused an explosion of darkness and light. The battle shook the mountains and caused a great storm above the mountain. They twisted and turned, each seeking the advantage. “I will have you,” Mortemis shouted, but Sabrina brought down powerful blows upon him. “Fire at her,” he directed those in the gallery.
“The hell you will,” Melvin said. He rushed up the stairs to the gallery and engaged all of them by himself. Fearing for their saf
ety, the daemia fired their arrows at Melvin. Several missed but two of them struck him in the joints of his armor. He recoiled in pain and gnashed his teeth, but he kept fighting. The girls charged up the stairs and joined him, pressing the attack around the pentagon. Melvin brought down his great sword and shattered the enemy’s blades. Arrows bounced off his chest plate, but one stuck in his left thigh. He limped toward them and kept their arrows trained on him. He raised his shield and rushed at them.