by Erik Reid
I froze. Silvery words had just appeared in my vision and then vanished, like someone had set up a movie projector inside my retinas.
OSCAR-Host: Linked
The bright blue demon with electric horns was running now, his clawed hands outstretched. Somewhere between us lingered more of that silvery text, blocky letters with a faint holographic sheen to them.
OSCAR-Host: Syncing Initiated
Sync Progress: 1%
Somatic Boost Initializing at Level: 1
Point of Information: Somatic Boost results from muscular integration with OSCAR-Host biologics
Usage Cost: None
My fingers started to tingle, a sensation that traveled quickly up my arm and across the rest of my body. The tip of my tongue, the backs of my eyes, the cuticles on my goddamned toes. Every cell in my body buzzed with an influx of awareness.
“Dani,” I said, frantically trying to slip my fingers beneath the fabric to tear this glove back off me. “Get back. I’m not sure what’s happening.”
Oscar clung so tight against my skin that there was no ridge of black fabric where the glove ended and my forearm began. Yet, it didn’t constrict my fingers or restrain my movement. My hand felt naked despite the pitch black covering and short, firm plates that covered my knuckles.
With a grunt and a lunge forward, A’zarkin punched his glowing fist toward my stomach. When his attack landed deep in my gut, a shockwave of cold rocketed through my body. I collapsed to the floor, momentarily out of breath while Dani rushed to my side and knelt down.
“Move, little draykin,” A’zarkin said, towering over my prone body. “It would be a shame to spill more of that precious blood than necessary. My children are thirsty.”
Dani didn’t retreat. She placed my head in her lap and ran her fingers down my cheeks. My teeth chattered involuntarily and my skin was icy and numb at the same time, though her warm touch was a welcome reprieve. “Get up, Kyle,” she pleaded. The fiery warmth of her breath roused me back to my senses.
A’zarkin shook his head and pulled back his fist, reigniting the blue energy that surrounded it while the spark between his horns grew brighter. He aimed for my face this time, bending his knees to bring his body close enough for his punch to hit with full force.
I raised my hand to block him.
His attack landed against my palm and stopped there. The blue energy that had engulfed his fist snuffed out and Oscar began to glow. There was no pain from A’zarkin’s impact — I had barely felt contact at all.
Energy Reserves Up: 4.2%
A’zarkin stood up and snarled. Sparks crackled and fizzled out at the tips of his horns. His hands only flickered the faintest blue. “I will have that glove, even if your hand is still in it.”
I stood up and he stepped back. His shoulders pivoted and his back stiffened.
“Huh,” I said. “You’re afraid. Of me.”
“An ego like that will only insult the both of us,” he said, baring his sharp teeth and punctuating his speech with a loud hiss.
I swung at his face and he ducked backward to avoid my impact while shaking his faintly flickering fist. His face strained like someone trying to set a new personal record on the bench press. No matter how hard he squinted and how tight he pinched his lips, the billowing blue aura that once engulfed his fists like fire built toward a weak shimmer and stalled out. He half-punched in the air a few times, but the quick motion did nothing to jump-start his buildup of energy.
I punched again. He raised a hand to block me and I landed hard against his palm. A’zarkin couldn’t absorb the impact the way Oscar had. I felt my fist thrust forward with more power than I had ever had before. My metal knuckle plates braced against his blue flesh and my attack pushed his arm backward like a twig. The blue shimmer he had worked so hard to summon blinked out entirely now.
Energy Reserves Up: 4.4%
He held his injured hand with his other one and stepped backward. “Enjoy your new toy. I will take it in time.”
I stepped forward for another assault, but A’zarkin turned and ran. Thin smears of ice crystalized in his wake, leaving glistening footprints that melted under the room’s ambient warmth.
The strand of lightning between his horns bulged into a small, crackling sphere that snapped apart from its tether and hovered over his shiny, bald head. It pulsed brighter and faster with every step until it erupted in a brilliant flash. In the blink of an eye, he vanished.
I paused to take a deep breath when Clara yelled, “Kyle!”
While I had their boss on the ropes, the bloodhounds were busy tearing the queen’s guards to shreds. A handful of draykin in leather armor lay bleeding and breathless in haphazard heaps, their wings sprawled out at odd angles beneath them.
Gretna held a hand against her ribs, crawling slowly across the throne room’s floor. Three bloodhounds, smeared with thick black blood and badly scratched up from the battle, encircled Dani now.
Clara’s dainty pink hands reached toward one of those bloodhounds, but it pulled back before she made contact. When it lunged and hissed in her face, she lost her footing and fell backward. The creature turned away from her and focused only on Dani.
I sprinted toward the continuing battle. Dani slashed out her claws and tore a long strip of skin from the bloodhound’s shoulder, leaving it to flap like torn cloth while they fought. The fiend slashed back, but it was tired from fighting the draykin guards and Dani had stayed out of harm’s way until now. Her reflexes were still fresh.
The other two bloodhounds turned to block my approach, so I aimed a shoulder at one and kept running. It stood upright, its limbs covered in gray shag and its hips angled out strangely. With its arms spread wide, it looked ready to grab hold of me and pin me down. Its lower jaw hung open and revealed those hideous screw-tipped teeth.
At the last second, I raised Oscar and aimed my palm at that bloodhound’s chest. The force of Oscar slamming into the fiend knocked it upward, off its feet and into the air before it landed on its back.
The effort stopped me in my tracks though, killing my inertia and giving the second bloodhound a chance to wrap itself around my body. It looped an arm around my neck, its legs around my waist, and howled right in my ear.
I ignored that beast and reached toward Dani’s attacker instead, but my own opponent wrapped another arm around my head then and pressed its cold, slimy lips against my neck.
My hands flew upward, reaching for the monster’s arms to pry them loose. At least, that’s where I thought they’d land. My injured hand did as I intended, but Oscar lifted higher. He looped a thumb inside the bloodhound’s mouth and pressed two fingers into its eyes, turning its face into a veritable bowling ball.
Sharp teeth touched Oscar but didn’t pierce him. I felt enamel grind against my Oscar-ized skin, pulverizing those unnatural incisors as they ground into the black fabric in vain. The creature stopped biting and started shrieking as my fingers pressed its eyeballs further into the back of its head.
As I wrangled with the bloodhound on my back, the one I had knocked halfway across the room got back on its feet.
Gretna limped toward it with her sword aimed forward. Her stance was unsteady, but her face was determined and her grip was firm.
The creature stalking toward her clutched its chest in apparent agony, but its glowing blue eyes stared her down while its knees bent, drawing it onto all fours. Just as it prepared to leap at her like a rabid attack dog, she brought her blade down hard, stabbing the fiend in the back at an acute angle.
I spun around when Dani screamed. The bloodhound she fought had its teeth deep in her throat.
Gretna’s demonspawn monster was pinned to the ground now, screeching and thrashing against her blade as she held it firm inside its chest cavity. When the monster went limp, she pulled her weapon free.
I staggered toward Dani, off-balance thanks to the bloodhound still clinging to my body. A slick of bloody black slime dripped onto my shoulder as I sank my finge
rs deeper into the creature’s skull. With a sickening squish, its eyes popped inward and my fingers sank deeper. The monster spasmed on my back, then fell right off me.
Gretna pointed her sword at Dani’s attacker.
“Wait!” the queen yelled.
Gretna froze and looked toward the throne.
“Let him show us who he is,” the queen said.
Gretna lowered her sword now and backed away, leaving me to handle the bloodhound drinking from Dani’s veins.
I knew what that felt like, the paralysis of a body whose blood flowed in reverse. The breathless cold and the sharp pain of a heart that beats too hard and too weak at the same time. My own heart raced as if to compensate for Dani’s struggle.
Her arms flinched as she tried to move them toward the attacker on her back, but she could barely move at all. I charged toward her, aware that each moment that stood between us could mean the difference between life and death.
Sync Progress: 2%
Specialized Assist Protocols: Linked
Tactical Assist: Initializing
Point of Information: Tactical Assist is provided through object target overlay
Usage Cost: None
A silver light accumulated in my vision, painting a brilliant glow that condensed into a crosshairs across the bloodhound’s ankle. It was exposed. While the creature perched beside Dani, drinking from her veins, it had one leg further back than the other.
That was the part of this monster closest to me, and my first opportunity to take its attention away from its meal. I dove, reaching for that ankle and curling my black-coated fingers around it. I pulled back, surprised at how easily I was able to pull the monster away. Its hold on Dani’s neck broke off and its body slid across the floor toward me. I pulled it under me and punched its face twice in rapid succession.
When it lifted its head from the floor and hissed at me, I yelled back. There was a rage erupting inside me now. This monster had hurt Dani, and it would pay. I punched it again, hard, shutting its foul mouth and spraying blood from its lips.
Dani slowly lifted her body off the floor on shaky arms, but even that effort was too much for her to sustain.
“Heal her!” I pleaded. Clara crawled toward her taker and placed her hands on the girl’s neck.
I stood over this creature and grabbed the loose fabric of its tunic shirt. I picked the bloodhound off the floor and tossed it halfway toward the exit to buy Dani and Clara the space they would need. I followed the monster as it rolled to a stop and turned back on all fours.
Snarling lips and blood-drenched fangs flashed at me as it hissed. I closed in on it now, the last bloodhound in the castle, and the one whose face was smeared with Dani’s blood.
I heaved with each labored breath, dragging my aching body toward that miserable fiend. My left fist was a bloody, broken mess. My right hand was a skintight mystery.
My opponent arched its back and howled, a deep canine sound from a face with partly-human features. I wondered if it was more werewolf than vampire at this point, but that calculus was ever-shifting.
Along its back, beneath the torn flaps of its damaged shirt, something grew. The fabric split apart and a pair of black, leathery wings sprang free. It backed away, flapping them a few times, then it ran.
It only took a few steps before it thrust those wings hard and lifted off, racing toward the open doors. I started to chase after it.
“Let it fly,” the queen said. “Today we wave the purple flag.”
I stopped running and watched the bloodhound pause at the threshold of the castle’s exit, leap, and thrust its wings. It took off toward the sky, gaining altitude while its gangly limbs hung loose from its body. Like a flying monkey without the clever little hat.
The twang of crossbows from overhead signaled the bloodhound’s impending demise. Then it shrieked and spun in an injured spiral toward the ground, with holes torn through its wings and crossbow bolts sticking out from its limbs and torso. After a short and fast fall, its body hit the ground with a splat.
When I looked back, a dozen fresh guards stood flanking the queen, and more emerged from the dark corridor behind her throne. That first row stood steady, not struggling for breath the way a man attending an emergency would. They had been there the whole fucking time. Watching.
“You would have let those monsters tear us apart,” I said, my eyes locked on the queen. “You held your fighters back while bloodhounds drained Dani’s blood. She’s a draykin, for fuck’s sake. She’s one of yours!”
“Bloodhounds are no simple foes,” the queen said. “You saw what happened when they drank one draykin’s blood.”
I glanced around, confused. “My brain is a little wired right now,” I said. “You’re going to have to spell this one out. And fast.”
“You will not make demands of the queen,” Gretna said, standing and clutching her side.
“I’m the one that just saved your asses, and I have the glove,” I said. “I’ll demand whatever the fuck I want.”
“Everyone, calm,” the queen said. “The bloodhounds are vampiric beasts. They absorb the beneficial traits of their hosts.”
“So the wings,” I said.
“Learned from the blood of a draykin,” the queen said. “I would not provide additional wings to our enemies so easily, and so I limited the number of draykin involved in this scuffle.”
“With so many of those monsters already attacking in the streets,” I said. “It’s a little late.”
“I pray that our archers will prevent airborne bloodhounds from escaping alive,” the queen said. “That is little of your concern now though, it is mine. I watched you prove yourself in battle, destroying creatures with hate in their eyes and menace in their mouths, saving the life of a single draykin even though you could easily have taken our ancient artifact and run.
“You truly are an heir to humanity’s valor,” she continued. “You must leave the city and take the glove with you. A’zarkin’s warriors will keep attacking us here, but they will be slow to follow you into the open lands beyond. Gretna will guide you.”
“If you think I’m letting Gretna bury me in sand just to hide your precious glove—”
“Visit Benoch the Destined,” the queen continued. “He has tutored every royal for three generations. If anyone can help inform your quest to defeat A’zarkin, it is he.”
“I’m not on a quest,” I said. “And I’m not in the middle of some idiotic dream, either. I’m lying on the ground somewhere in Indiana, with a brain fried through by ball lightning. Or I’m in a coma in a hospital bed. Or in a coffin waiting for a eulogy and a soft bright light to lead me up to Saint Peter.”
“Go,” the queen said. “Benoch will help you understand the fist of Oscar. Time is short.”
I stood there, my mind racing and my fists balled — one still bleeding and the other covered in a formless, weightless black fabric.
“Come on, Kyle,” Dani said. “We’ve been dismissed.”
“Not so fast,” the queen said. “Daniana Weyforth, you forget the duties of your race.”
“Your highness,” Dani said. “I will provide for my kobold given during these dangerous travels.”
“You have no given,” the queen said. “You have only a blood debt, and you will swear to it now or you will not leave this castle a free woman.”
“Hey,” I said. “You want me to take Oscar for a walk and find your old geezer teacher? Fine, but don’t you do a thing to hurt Dani.”
Dani lowered her head. “In another life, I have a small kobold given and a fresh lease on a small shop with a candy oven and a second-hand cash register waiting for its first few rounds. That’s not my life though. Not anymore.”
“Did you think you could ignore the boon of a saved life?” the queen asked. “Go on your merry way as if the extension of your time on this plane was free? On your knees, draykin. Speak the words.”
Dani knelt at my feet without looking up at me. “Kyle, my life wou
ld end outside your hands. Now, I place everything within them. Blood for blood and life for life, mine is yours to hold.”
“Get up,” I said. “We don’t need this bullshit.”
“Under draykin law,” the queen said, “everything belonging to Daniana is now yours. Including her funds, her possessions, her body, and her soul.”
“I’m sorry, her soul? I’m the proud owner of a draykin soul now? What exactly am I supposed to do with that?”
“My first concern is protecting my egg,” the queen said, “because my highest calling is to ensure the prosperous future of our race. That duty underlies my every word and action. I ordered Gretna to stand down to ensure that Dani’s blood debt would fall to you.
“She fights well enough, but the true value she brings you is the kobold. Touched by the Goddess and gifted with healing, she is a boon on your travels. Thanks to Dani’s blood debt, control of the given passes to you, Kyle.
“What you do with Dani’s soul is not my concern, so long as you keep the kobold at your side.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” I said.
“A hero never asks for a quest,” the queen said. “He simply accepts what fate delivers. Now onward. Gretna will accompany you. Protection of the glove remains her royal orders.”
“Yes, your highness,” Gretna said. “But—”
“No matter how long it takes.” The queen flashed Gretna a stern look, and the captain of the guard let it drop.
Just then a new batch of bloodhounds charged down the long hallway toward us. A few draykin guards followed behind them, lashing out with swords that sliced the monsters at the legs and knocked them into bloody heaps. After a few quick stabs, the mongrel beasts were slain.