by Erik Reid
As I waited for A’zarkin to finish me off, Jasmine stood and smiled in my direction. “Kyle!” she yelled. “Catch!”
Oscar’s limp shape flew across the glacial cavern, soaring above the demonfire that flickered in a single black tongue at the chamber’s center. The onicite glove flopped into a small heap of impossibly thin fabric two feet in front of me.
Pakson smacked Jasmine’s face and knocked her down. I dove for the glove, flattening against the ice and scooping Oscar up. An icy grip cinched around my ankles as A’zarkin grabbed me and pulled me toward him.
My fingers were swollen; they stung from unnatural cold; they were wet from blood and sweat and melted ice water. I struggled to pull the onicite gauntlet onto my right hand.
A’zarkin flipped me onto my back and tackled me, grappling with my hands and trying to pry the glove from my grip. I rolled with him, wrestling against his cold blue arms for control of Oscar’s fist. My fingers found the rim of black fabric and started to slip beneath it.
OSCAR-Host: Detected
OSCAR-Host: Linked
Sync Progress: Paused at 11%
OSCAR-Host: Syncing Resumed
Amidst the flurry of silver text scrolling through my vision, I grabbed one of A’zarkin’s horns and shrank the electric blue energy sizzling over his head. Oscar drank in the demon’s power.
Energy Reserves Up: 6.7%
The demon screamed and kicked, pushing out from under me and attempting to run. I kicked his ass and he flopped forward again, crawling inches at a time on his belly in a failed effort to escape.
I bent low and punched A’zarkin in the back, snapping the bones in his spine and forcing his legs to go slack behind him. I struck the back of his skull next, slamming his face into the ice and smearing it with thick, black blood. Then I looked up and scanned for the nearest kobold.
“Franco,” I said.
“Yes, M— I mean… Kyle?”
“Pickax.”
The blue demon beneath me rolled his head against the cavern’s ice floor and moaned. Franco tossed his tool toward me and I grabbed it with Oscar’s familiar fingers.
I stood up, towering over A’zarkin’s prone body. Then I raised the pickax high.
“Father!” Pakson yelled, lurching forward in his seat. “You cannot let him kill you, not until you fulfill your promise to me. I forbid you to die!”
“You guys have a weird relationship,” I said. Then I swung the sharp end of the tool into the center of A’zarkin’s back, splitting his skin, and muscle, and sinew, and striking something hard. When I pulled the weapon from A’zarkin’s mauled torso, his demon heart was stuck to it like a hunk of ore. I plucked it free and tossed the pickax aside.
A’zarkin reached up with one hand, but not toward me. He touched his horns, releasing the faint spark of his demonic energy. It wafted toward Pakson, a flickering mote of blue light that twinkled like glitter in the wind. Then A’zarkin’s body collapsed, heartless and bleeding on his cavern floor.
All around us, the bloodhounds collapsed. Their burning blue eyes darkened, their bodies went slack, and they followed their master into the still dark nothingness of death.
A’zarkin’s demon spark settled above Pakson’s head and burst, showering him with twinkling blue specks. He stood from his throne, his teeth set in a dull gray smile as a pair of long, dark horns grew outward from his skull and parted his stringy black hair. He traced them with long blue fingers, testing the sharpness of their points before tapping the thin strand of electric blue energy that stretched between them. It sizzled and sparked at his touch.
“I have been crowned, father,” he said. “My coronation is complete!”
“For fuck’s sake,” I said. “A’zarkin was not the mid-boss. Nope, I refuse to accept that.”
“Kyle!” Lissa yelled. She stood beside Dani and Clara as Kaylee shook her head and sat upright, finally awake. “The heart!”
Oscar’s fingers tensed around the onicite heart. He was the reason we had made it this far, and he deserved a reward for that. I didn’t owe Lissa or her mysterious Order anything.
Oscar deserved the energy trapped inside this stone. He hungered for it. I hungered for it.
“Tell the Order you tried,” I said. Then I clenched my fist and released a shockwave of electric blue light, pulverizing A’zarkin’s heart and feeding Oscar all of his power.
Energy Reserves Up: 50.1%
“Holy fuck that’s a lot,” I said.
Lissa’s face fell. “You’ve quenched his heart. What have I to show for my efforts now?”
“You can have Pakson,” I said. “If Jasmine’s willing to share, that is.”
“This is not about me, or the trophy of a demon’s heart,” Lissa said. “The Order works to prevent the realms from catastrophic events. The veils between realms cannot be maintained on faith alone!”
“Um,” I said. “Sorry not sorry?”
“I can feel the ancient vibration,” Pakson said. “It resonates within my very soul.” He played with a spark of blue light in his hand, seemingly mesmerized by his own magic.
“You have made an enemy of me, Kyle the Vanquisher,” Lissa said. Then she snatched an ice spear from the floor and leapt toward Pakson.
My hand slipped into my pocket without my realizing it. Oscar pinched the still-not-a-tarot card and pulled it free.
Activate Heresy Node? Y/N
Usage Cost: 50% of Energy Reserves
“Whoa,” I said.
“Whoa what?” Dani asked, stepping toward me.
“Oscar just gave me the option to open the heresy node. He’s got enough power in him to take me back to Earth.”
“I see,” Dani said.
“Come with me,” I said.
“And just leave everything I know behind?”
“I did,” I said.
“That’s different. That was involuntary. I would need time to think about leaving Silura behind, to make my peace with it.”
“Not me,” I said, glancing back at Clara, her pink fingers wiping tears away from her cheeks. Kaylee’s eyes fluttered open as her head lay in the kobold’s lap. In front of me, Dani stood with wide eyes and a gentle, unassuming smile.
Pakson sent a shower of weak sparks over Lissa while Jasmine covered her head and ducked down low. The bloodmonkeys were all pinned down by kobold givens holding pickaxes to their throats, but Pakson paid them no mind. He had a demon huntress to contend with now, one with cat-like reflexes dead set on taking his heart as a consolation prize.
I didn’t understand this place’s history or politics; its creation myth and confusing alliances; its systems of magic and war. Yet, this place — and every last person and demonspawn in this ridiculous glacial tableau — made sense. After a short time of immersing myself in this world, it felt like it was mine.
The card pinched between my fingers was beaten up around the edges, but the artwork of Thrillville’s towering rides was as crisp and vivid as ever. Indiana. That’s what suddenly felt foreign. It was a realm that didn’t need a man like me, or a glove like Oscar. Together, our purpose was here.
“There are a few things I’m going to miss about Earth,” I said. “Fake nacho cheese; incognito browsing on the web; antibiotics. I can’t leave though. Not with you all here.”
“What about Selena?” Dani asked.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Selena. She was always my constant. “She’s better off,” I said. “All that time she spent with me, when she should have been out there looking for a boyfriend…” The thought of some random guy rubbing his hands all over her made me queasy.
I couldn’t give up the hope of seeing her again forever.
“Maybe we can take a trip one day,” I said. “When you’re all ready. I didn’t choose to come here, but I can choose to stay. That’s my choice.”
Activate Heresy Node? Y/N
“No, Oscar,” I said. “I’m staying put.”
Activate Heresy Node? Y/N
Activate Heresy Node? Y/N
“Oscar, enough.” I went to tuck the item into my pocket, but Oscar fought against me, thrusting the card into my face and insisting I answer his question again.
Activate Heresy Node? Y/N
Quit it, I thought. You’re embarrassing yourself.
Activating Heresy Node
Low Energy Warning
Energy Reserves: 0.1%
Entering Stasis Mode
“No!” I yelled. The card still sat before me, but now it glowed a brilliant purple.
“What’s going on?” Lissa asked, swinging her ice spear wide.
“Oscar activated the portal on his own,” I said. Dark clouds gathered overhead, blocking out the stars and the moon. “I don’t know how to stop it.”
“This travel is forbidden,” Lissa said. “Too unpredictable, too destructive!”
Jasmine stood up, her eyes wide with excitement. “Just like back home. It’s the same storm!”
A brilliant explosion of purple lightning and a deafening clap of thunder preceded a burst of powerful winds that carried harsh rains on their backs. I reached for Dani, pulling her close, and waving the other girls over to me. Clara and Kaylee piled on, all four of us huddling together and holding on for support.
Kobolds sank their pickaxes into the glacier’s floor and held tight for stability’s sake. Bloodmonkeys lowered their bodies against the ice and put their hands over their heads. Pakson looked up at the rain and lifted one hand, turning that precipitation into sleet and then hail.
“He has his father’s magic now,” I said.
“And he has Jasmine,” Dani said. “That poor girl.”
A dozen tendrils of purple light streaked from the clouds to the ice around us. They struck kobolds and demonspawn, Pakson and Jasmine, Clara and Lissa and Kaylee. Every target vanished in a burst of blinding light. Only the dead among us were immune to the storm’s power. One by one, every living, breathing body in A’zarkin’s hollowed glacier vanished, whisked away to another realm.
“I’m sorry, Dani,” I said. “I wanted us to stay.”
She kissed me on the cheek and held my body close against hers. “I suppose you did promise me pop rocks.”
The final bolts from the heresy storm’s black clouds lit a million pellets of atmospheric ice from behind in a split-second flash, then they struck us both in the back.
CHAPTER 33
When my eyes opened again, my feet were on solid blacktop. Ramshackle wooden huts lined a wide pathway on either side, with the outlines of metal amusement rides stretching toward the sky around us.
A burly bloodmonkey held Jasmine over its shoulder, ignoring the thump of her fists against its broad back. Round, half-moon ears hung low on its head. The long monkey-like tail that extended from its rear was grayer and mangier than when our battle began.
“Don’t follow me, would-be hero,” Pakson said. “Our paths need not cross in this realm again.”
“This isn’t your world, Pakson,” I said. “You can’t hide inside a glacier while you gather your power. Mostly because of global warming, but you also don’t have a passport, so you’re doomed one way or the other.”
Pakson’s long, gaunt face struggled to smile. His thin blue lips curled back to reveal a row of pale gray teeth. “There is no world too warm for a demon of my element.” He raised one hand and twirled his fingers in the air. “This surge of power will take getting used to, but it will suffice.”
The clouds overhead, still lingering after the heresy storm, blanketed the sky in every direction. As Pakson twiddled his fingers, a gentle wind turned into a stiff and icy gust that carried the first flakes of fresh snow.
I stood blocking the girls from Pakson’s gathering storm, holding Oscar in a high fist. Pakson didn’t know Oscar was out of juice, and I wasn’t going to tell him.
“Leave Jasmine and go,” I yelled, my voice diminished in competition with the growing wind.
“She is my womb to protect,” he said, bolstering the storm and summoning thicker snow. “And, perhaps, to punish.”
“You will end up like your father, Pakson,” I said. I took a step toward him when a voice from behind stopped me in my tracks.
“Kyle!”
I spun around to look for its source, so overwhelmed by hope and confusion that I turned my back on Pakson.
“Selena! Where are you?”
I squinted against thickening snow. Every shifting shape could have been her, the best friend I had left behind. Every creak and groan of the outdated rollercoasters surrounding us could be another word from her beautiful, snarky, irritating, sexy, nerdy voice. I searched frantically, my heart in my chest.
“Kyle!” she yelled again.
I turned back toward Pakson and saw her there, a hundred feet behind him, sprinting her way toward me.
“Stop!” I yelled. “Don’t go near him!”
Pakson looked back and his forced, mirthless smile widened. The fingers that twirled in his hand tightened. His eyes glowed with electric blue energy.
A wall of snow fell from the sky, blanketing us in a solid inch at once. Selena slipped and skidded to the ground, landing flat on her back.
“You could try to stop me,” Pakson said, yelling over the growing blizzard winds. “Fight for the one you call ‘Jasmine.’ But you have a choice to make, don’t you?”
Pakson turned to walk away, leading his army of bloodmonkey demonspawn toward the theme park’s front exit and quickly vanishing into the thick curtain of snow and ice that descended all around us.
I took a step toward Selena when the snow that piled onto a nearby sign slid off in a single curtain, revealing a name I knew all too well. Sidewinder. The bolts and rails of that ancient ride screamed and moaned against the weight of ice accumulating on its every surface.
“Selena,” I yelled, “you have to get up!”
My feet carried me toward her while she tried to stand, but she fell back into the snow. “My ankle,” she said. “I think I broke it!”
The highest loop in the park had a foot of solid ice clinging to its rusted metal, and as I raced toward Selena, it croaked for the final time. Metal bolts popped from its seams and half of that loop came loose, twisting in midair as it collapsed toward the ground.
I reached with Oscar in an attempt to catch the arched metal track before it crashed into the girl who always stood by me in thick or thin. Who stayed in the theater with me after the lights all came on and the credits ended just in case there was a second secret clip waiting for dedicated fans like us.
Oscar was out of juice now, but I didn’t care. Even if that rollercoaster crushed me into a pulp, I’d make that sacrifice. I’d save Selena. Somewhere along the way, in his twisted and slightly underhanded way, Oscar turned me into a real hero.
All of my sprinting didn’t matter. All of my self-assurance, and internal bargaining, and stunning realizations of how deeply I cared about Selena — they were ten feet shy. Just before I reached her body, lying flat in the billowing snow, the thick metal beam crashed through her chest.
The snow turned red.
A spear of metal at the beam’s edge, once used to connect the track to the other half of the rollercoaster’s loop, cut into Selena’s upper chest like a knife.
“No!” I yelled. “Help me get this off her, she can’t breathe.” My hands gripped the metal instinctively, but I lacked the strength to move the beam myself with Oscar’s Somatic Assist was offline. Dani raced to my side to help, and Kaylee too, but only after ten long seconds did we pry the fallen metal structure off the ground, sliding the metal spike out of Selena’s wound. She screamed in agony for a moment, then coughed, splattering her lips with blood.
In those precious seconds, a dark and glistening pool of red spread across her chest, soaking her T-shirt in an ever-expa
nding stain.
I flattened my hands on top of the wound and applied some pressure. “Selena,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”
“At least it’s just my Hulk T-shirt,” she said, “I won’t even miss it.” She pausing for a laugh that instead came out as a cough.
“Hang in there,” I said. “Dani, call 9-1-1.”
The draykin opened her mouth in confusion but couldn’t quite get a question out.
“My phone,” I said. “The battery is dead. Selena, where’s yours?”
Her head hit the pavement for a second before she regained herself.
“Do not die,” I said. She smiled and closed her eyes behind her oversized glasses. I took one hand and brushed her hair out of her face and wiped my thumb across her lenses to clear the flakes of snow that started to hide her beautiful eyes. All I did was smear blood across them, streaking the glass with something dark and vital.
A crowd of kobolds surrounded us, all silent and sad.
Another cough escaped Selena’s lips, far weaker and more pitiful than the last one.
“Kyle,” Dani said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know what I can do.”
Kaylee knelt by Selena’s side and took her hand.
“You stay with us,” I said. “You have so much left to live for. They’ll reboot X-Men, Selena. Within the MCU!”
Clara sat beside me and took Selena’s other hand. “Everyone, get back.”