by N M Thorn
“About time,” mumbled Gunz, “I wonder what woke you up.”
“Your friend, Sasha Shevchenko. They’re all alive and free, by the way. But let’s kill first, tell tales later.” Aidan laughed, his eyes burning with excitement and the brilliant glow of his magic. “I hope you will honor me by fighting by my side, Fire Salamander.”
“Hell, yeah,” said Gunz jumping off the platform.
Finally, in a vertical position, standing on firm ground, Gunz could see that the machine was positioned in the middle of a wide field that was supposed to be used for the knights’ tournaments. The crowd was still surrounding them in a wide circle, standing around the perimeter of the field. They cheered and applauded, thinking that everything that was happening on the field was part of a play.
Eve was levitating a few feet above the ground inside a semi-transparent bubble, furiously chanting something. Her voice fluctuated, going lower and higher, switching to wild shrills once in a while. Her arms were raised, and a rotating dark mass was gathering between her hands. Gunz had no doubt that the bubble was some kind of protective shield, conjured by Eve’s magic.
“I tried to break through her shield alone and couldn’t,” said Aidan. “Let’s try together. Maybe by combining the powers of Fire and Water, we could burst her bubble.”
He gave a dark chuckle, pulling the long sword out. The weapon glistened in his hands like it was made of ice. A collective gasp swept through the mass of people as they watched Aidan in awe.
“Aidan,” whispered Gunz, “with all these humans around, I can’t use my full power to fight. Too dangerous.” He reached into his pocket and pulled his Swiss army knife out, turning it into a long sword, and ignited it with the fire. “We need to guard the people from my fire energy but also from Eve’s magic. Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
Aidan glanced in Eve’s direction and cursed quietly. As Eve kept chanting, the dark mass between her arms was growing bigger, long slithering tentacles spewed out, moving through her shield toward the crowd. A few of them already reached people. They wrapped around their necks, entering their bodies through their eyes, nostrils and mouths. The people didn’t scream and didn’t struggle, hanging limply sprawled in the air. No one in the excited crowd noticed this and Gunz wondered if their oblivion was inflicted by Eve’s magic.
“Uri!” yelled Aidan over the noise. “We need a protective dome! NOW!”
“On it! Almost there!”
Gunz heard Uri’s raspy voice coming somewhere from above and looked up. The creature he saw above the field was Uri, but it wasn’t him. The man was levitating a few yards above the ground supported by giant flaming wings. The only creature of magic that Gunz knew of, that had fiery wings was the Phoenix. Gunz saw him flying enough times to recognize that Uri wasn’t a Phoenix.
His body was glowing with fierce flames, but he wasn’t emitting any heat. His fire was shining with golden shades and was completely cold. Besides that, Gunz didn’t sense the presence of the elemental power in Uri’s magical energy signature. Yet Uri’s whole appearance was breathing with dangerous power the likes of which Gunz had never sensed before.
Uri outstretched his arm forward and shouted something. However, no matter how much Gunz strained his hearing, he couldn’t make out his words over the noise of the crowd. A wall of flames surrounded them, leaving all the humans outside the circle, isolating Eve inside. The fire was rising high in the air creating a large dome, but there was neither heat nor smoke.
As soon as the golden fire touched the black tendrils of Eve’s magic, they hissed and dissipated. Eve noticed the fire and shrieked, the air demon’s true face manifesting through her human face, her yellow eyes blazing with fury. Shouting curses, she pointed her hand at Aidan and hissed something. A wave of dark energy emerged from her hand and impacted Aidan in his chest.
Aidan cried out and fell to his knees, wrapping his head with his arms. He was whispering something incoherent, bending forward like he was trying to conceal his face. Gunz grabbed him, shaking his shoulder, but Aidan didn’t respond. Gunz scanned him with his magic, noticing that Aidan was surrounded by a powerful illusion. Uri realized the same thing and swooped down, kneeling next to Aidan.
“Zane,” said Uri urgently. “I can take care of this illusion. Can you keep Eve busy? We need to wait for Angel to arrive. He has what we need to send Eve where she belongs.”
Gunz spun around. The wall of fire was separating them from the humans, but he wasn’t sure if that was enough to contain his power. Uri noticed his hesitation and gave him a heavy stare, infused with a golden glow.
“Don’t hesitate to unleash your full power, Salamander,” he ordered. “My purifying fire can contain your natural state. We need to keep Eve busy just a while longer.”
This momentary distraction gave Eve time to regroup. She reverted to her demonic state, tapping into her full power of the air demon. Rising at least ten feet tall, her look was bloodcurdling. Her vile face resembled a skull with parchment-like skin stretched over it. Deep in the eye sockets of the skull, a venomous yellow fire was burning with abhorrence and malice. Her hair got longer, and its dirty strands were slithering in the air around her head like a bunch of entangled snakes. Her spine twisted, forming a large hump on her back and a bony spike protruded on each of her vertebrae. Her hands morphed into giant talons and she struck Uri’s protective wall with her raiser-sharp claws.
Her strike made a tiny opening in the fire shield and she cackled, sending a small wave of her dark magic through the opening. The hole closed up almost immediately, but her magic escaped into the outside world. Gunz heard cries of fear outside the protective circle. He carefully touched the wall of cold flames and found that just like a regular fire, it obeyed his command.
Gunz commanded the fire to let him through, walked outside of Uri’s fire dome and halted, staring at the mayhem and devastation that unfolded before his eyes. The entire Festival was in a state of mass panic. The people were running, screaming and crying, chased by a pack of volkolaks. Enormous vicious animals were attacking people, slashing them with their claws, ripping their flesh with their monstrous fangs. He heard a few gunshots, but he knew that regular bullets would do no damage to the volkolaks.
Dammit, I’m sure someone already called 911… and probably animal control too. More people for volkolaks to have fun with, Gunz thought, swinging his flaming sword at a nearby monster.
He killed a few volkolaks and stopped, realizing that without reverting into his natural state, he couldn’t get rid of the pack of monsters of this size.
“Hey, Fire Gecko.” Gunz heard a familiar voice and snapped around. Sven was standing next to him, his oversized eyes glowing with a bright phosphoric light. “Go back behind the fire circle, little lizard. Angel should be here in a moment. Aidan and Uri need you there. I’ll take care of these mutts. After all, I am a god of nature.”
“Svyatobor,” said Gunz, “I hope you noticed that these are not wolves. These are demons. There is nothing natural about these monsters.”
“I know,” said Svyatobor, snickering. “If I die, I’ll ask you for help.” He laughed and pushed Gunz through the fire back inside the circle. In the last second, Gunz saw that Svyatobor started to change his appearance, shifting into a large brown bear that was holding an enormous axe in his paws.
Here is something you don’t see every day. And I thought all those Russian legends and myths were nothing but children’s bedtime stories, thought Gunz, switching his attention to what was going on inside the dome.
Aidan was back in action, but both Uri and Aidan seemed to have a problem dealing with Eve’s demonic powers. Eve kept disappearing, morphing into her incorporeal state. Using their confusion, she was popping in and out, attacking them from behind when they couldn’t see her.
“Aidan, why aren’t you using your other sight,” yelled Gunz. He wasn’t a hundred percent sure, but he thought that Aidan as a god would have the magical sight.
Gunz roared, reverting into his natural state, rising to the same height as Aidan. The energy of fire spread around him, filling every inch within the protective dome. Eve yelped in pain materializing right in front of Aidan. As soon as Aidan saw her, he struck her with his icy sword, but before the blade could reach her, she already shifted into her incorporeal state and his sword did no damage.
Gunz closed his eyes and observed the area using his Salamander’s sense. Eve was playing a game of cat and mouse with them. With her bodiless presence, they had no real weapon against her. Both Uri and Aidan were attacking her with their magic and their swords, wielding the fire and the ice, but nothing was working. Gunz joined their attack striking Eve with the undiluted energy of the elemental fire. She was avoiding all their strikes easily, appearing once in a while, either to assault them from behind or to mock them acidly.
“Hey, guys!” Sven’s desperate voice sounded in his head. Gunz flinched, not expecting that the Russian deity could communicate telepathically. “What’s wrong with you? Three young god-like men can’t handle one ancient demonic hag. I need help, guys. People are dying. There are too many of these furry monsters here and I can’t be in every corner of this park at the same time. They seem to multiply faster than I can kill them…”
Police sirens sounded somewhere in the distance. It meant more humans were coming to the park. They would charge the wolf-looking demons with their mundane weapons that would do no damage to them except making them angrier and more vicious. More people to kill, more possible deaths, more spirits for Eve to infect with her demonic energy and throw at the veil.
I wish Mishka was here, thought Gunz with regret. Last time the wyvern got rid of volkolaks like it was nothing for him.
“Yeehaw!” Mishka’s joyful battle cry rang through the air, right outside the fire dome. “You called, boss?”
I wish I had a million dollars, thought Gunz, chuckling. “Mishka, I am so happy to hear your voice, buddy!” yelled Gunz, stabbing the air demon as she popped right in front of his face. “Sven is dealing with a little volkolaks infestation in the park. Can you assist him?”
“You want me to help that cruel trickster, boss?” asked Mishka carefully.
“Yes!” yelled Gunz, twirling in place to avoid a stream of Eve’s foul magic.
“Okay, boss, I’ll get rid of these assorted mutts, but can I also dispose of the mean trickster at the same time?” asked Mishka.
“No, Mishka. Sven is on our side.”
“Aw, too bad,” mumbled the wyvern with a sigh, sounding crestfallen. “But after I’m done with the mutts, can I at least fry the mean trickster a little?”
“Ugh, Mishka, no!” roared Gunz, expending his fire energy to draw Eve out of the shadows. “Help Sven! Save humans! Kill volkolaks!”
A moment later, he heard Mishka’s happy battle cry carried through the circle of fire, joined by Sven’s wild laughter. The wind sped up outside the fire dome. Something clapped and knocked loudly, and a wild cacophony of sounds accompanied whatever Svyatobor was doing. But as long as Gunz could hear the howling and yelping of dying volkolaks, he didn’t really care what it was.
In the meantime, the situation inside the fire dome hadn’t changed. Gunz had to keep his fire energy flowing all the time to stop Eve from keeping her incorporeal state for too long and give a fighting chance to Uri and Aidan.
It wasn’t news that they didn’t have what it took to kill Eve and keeping her inside the dome forever wasn’t an option either. While Uri seemed to be unfazed by all the use of his magic and fighting, Aidan was starting to slow down. With dread, Gunz realized that if Angel wound’t show up any time soon, Eve would break through. She managed to damage the protective wall of fire once, she probably could do it again on a bigger scale.
A light wind brushed through the area, penetrating the fire dome. The evening light started to dim down and gradually got replaced by an impenetrable darkness. The ground trembled slightly. The only light that illuminated the area isolated by the dome was the burning fire and white light emitted by Aidan’s body and his sword.
“Finally,” exhaled Aidan, breathing laboriously. “Angel is here.”
The fire dome opened up at its apex and a figure of a man, supported by enormous black wings, slowly started to descend to the ground. Gunz stared at him in awe, hardly recognizing the cheerful young Spaniard he met in Aidan’s school. Angel was dressed in black pants and a shirt with a long black trench coat over it. His long dark hair was flowing down his back, falling below his shoulders. His obsidian eyes were sparkling with danger below his thick black eyebrows, as he was whispering an enchantment in a language that sounded either like Latin or the Dragon tongue.
“Aidan, I’m ready to open the void,” said Angel. His voice filled all the space, surrounding them with the magical energy Gunz finally recognized. It was the energy of Death itself.
Angel folded his wings behind his back and twirled in place. As he was spinning, absolute darkness surrounded him. Aidan seized Gunz’s arm and pulled him to the opposite side of the fire circle. Uri flew all the way to the top of the dome. In complete silence, Eve’s shrills of horror were deafening. She attempted to disappear, but Gunz hit her with the fire energy, bringing her back to visibility.
Angel stopped spinning and opened his magnificent wings to their full extent. Behind him there was an absolute nothingness, a dark shapeless void. The winds were howling inside the void and only the bright zig-zags of lightnings were splitting the pureness of its blackness.
“It’s ready,” said Angel, approaching Aidan and standing by his side. “We need to do it fast as it takes a lot of my strength to sustain the void open.”
Eve hooted laughing, the yellow light of her demonic eyes becoming brighter. She flew higher up and folded her bony arms over her deformed chest. Her scornful gaze darted from Angel to Gunz and then stopped on Aidan.
“You never had what it took to kill me, stepson,” she hissed, venom dripping from her lipless mouth. “What makes you think you can do it now? Two thousand years later, you’re still the same scared twelve-year-old boy.”
“You’re right. I couldn’t fight you then,” said Aidan calmly. “Almost twenty-five hundred years ago, I was a little child, helpless and scared, begging you for the life of my beloved siblings and you showed us no mercy. But I don’t know if you noticed, I’m not that little boy anymore and I’m not facing you alone.”
“Good luck to you and your flock.” Eve guffawed, throwing her ugly head back, and the entangled strands of her hair moved around her head, shaking with her sinister laughter. Eve waved her talons goodbye and melted into thin air.
The ground shook again, and green leafy vines broke the surface. They were growing quick, stretching up into the air, their stems becoming thicker and stronger. The vines wrapped around Eve’s arms and legs, pulling her back down and suspending her in the air, as she struggled fruitlessly.
“Where do you need her, boys?”
Gunz turned to see Sven standing a few steps back, Mishka nestled on his shoulder. Sven swung his arm and the vines obeyed him, moving Eve and positioning her in front of the void. Eve shrieked curses and spells, but nothing was working against Sven’s power over nature.
Realizing that she couldn’t break free, Eve changed her tactics. She stopped threatening Aidan and started pleading with him, calling him her favorite son and promising him all the riches of this world and any other world. At her words, color drained off Aidan’s face and if he could look any paler, he would probably be green. As he pressed his hand to his stomach, Gunz started to worry that he was about to throw up.
“Let’s get it over with, Aidan,” said Gunz, squeezing his shoulder.
Aidan channeled his full power and his appearance started to change. For a moment his whole body shone with an unbearable white light and when the light subsided, Gunz saw not the Aidan McGrath, but Aodh, a god of the Otherworld, in the way he had never seen him before. He was dressed in clot
hes of an ancient hunter-warrior—leather pants and jacket, trimmed with furs and feathers. He stood tall with his icy sword in his hand and a bow with a quiver was strapped to his back. A heavy gaze of his blazing white eyes stopped on Eve and his lips curved in a glacial smile.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment forever,” he whispered.
He pointed his sword at Eve and a powerful stream of his power walloped her in her chest. Eve cried out as Aidan’s power surrounded her, immobilizing her. Gunz channeled all his fire and his whole body got engulfed with smoldering flames. He halted next to Aidan, rising to the same height as him and directed the flow of the fire at Eve, joining his attack.
As Sven released his vines, Eve got pushed a few feet closer to the void. A dangerous growl rumbled in her chest as she started to weave her rancorous magic again. The dark mist rose from beneath and she started accumulating it between her arms. Dark tentacles were sprouting from the mist, wrapping around her arms and her body like an indestructible body armor. It seemed like this spell was giving her back some of her strength, as she started to fight their powerful assault, inching her farther away from the void.
“Aidan, I don’t know how much longer I can hold the void opened,” said Angel quietly. “It sucks my power like a vacuum.”
Gunz threw a quick glance at Angel and frowned. His face was tensed, his outstretched arms were shaking, his black wings opened fully, and it was obvious that in a few minutes he would be out of power and out of strength.
“We need help, Aidan,” said Gunz, “do you want me to summon Kal?”
Aidan’s eyes darted to Gunz for a brief second, and he shook his head no. He shouted a spell and a dense bubble of his power shield surrounded Eve, cutting off her connection with the dark mist. Eve swiped her talons across his shield, ripping it to shreds. The mist got thicker and now she looked like she was wearing a long shimmering robe that was wrapping, moving and slithering all over her oversized grotesque body. Its movement was sickening and entrancing at the same time.