Fall From Grace, page 18
part #9 of the Preternatural Chronicles Series
The multiple grips around Locke’s arms gave way, and the wizard pushed his wand into the burning creature’s underside, sending out a torrent of air.
The spider crashed into the ceiling and exploded into goo that shot everywhere, covering Locke from head to toe in warm ectoplasm.
Letting his muscles take a moment to relax after being electrocuted, Locke could only spit the warm remains of the spider out of his mouth, content to keep his eyes closed rather than risk moving his arms to clear them.
“Are you okay?” Russell asked, surprising Locke with how quiet the troll’s movements were.
“I…need a shower…”
“The king has one in his room,” Russell suggested while thumbing over his shoulder.
“Maybe later,” Locke answered, groaning as he sat up and rubbed the goop from his eyes. “How much further is the safe?”
“King TalGoid’s room is just down the hall up ahead.”
“Right…let’s do this.”
Getting to his feet, Locke shook his arms in an effort to sling the ectoplasm off of him, even though it was beginning to evaporate on its own.
“Keep your eyes open,” Locke instructed as his eye scanned the dim hallway.
Movement in the dark caught Locke’s attention, and he willed a bright sphere of energy to shoot from his wand, illuminating whatever it passed.
A chorus of hisses filled the silence, making the bottom drop out of Locke’s stomach as countless more wolf-legged spiders crawled over one another.
Locke’s mouth dropped open seeing that it wasn’t just that the hallway was devoid of light but that the obsidian creatures also gave the illusion of darkness. Now, they resembled a moving tide, skittering over the floors, walls, and ceiling toward a stunned Locke and Russell.
“RUN!” Locke blurted, forcing the pair into action.
“This way!” Russell called out, running toward the advancing horde of spiders.
Locke had a brief moment of hesitation as his instinct to survive demanded that he turn and flee from the creepy monsters, but then he saw the entrance leading off the main hallway.
Locke sprinted after Russell, who disappeared into the side hall, praying that he not trip over the uneven floor.
Gathering elemental energy into his wand, Locke shouted as he threw a ball of lightning toward the army of darkness before jumping into the hallway.
Deafening shrieks banged against Locke’s eardrums, the booming sounds doing their best to rupture the tender flesh and tiny bones.
Rolling on the ground, Locke got to his feet, oriented on where Russell was already halfway down the new hallway, judging by the barely visible gray sweatpants, and sprinted after him.
The attack had definitely cleared a number of the spiders, but more could be heard following close behind, each of their arms thumping against the walls, floor, and ceiling.
Daring a look behind him, Locke almost screamed at how close the monsters were, even with the elemental attack. His foot caught the lip of the distorted floor, and he yelped in both surprise and terror.
Pushing himself to his back as quickly as humanly possible, Locke began crab walking away from the spiders, a cry of “No!” escaping his mouth.
A wolf-spider leaped through the air, only to be intercepted by a spear that completely countered its kinetic energy, sending the monster flying down the hall. Two more wolf-legged creatures leaped, only to be met with an identical fate.
Taking his cue, Locke scrambled to his feet and ran toward where Russell was lobbing spears that had appeared in his hands as if out of thin air.
Two more spears flew past Locke, singing in his ear as they sliced through the air only inches from his skull. More thumps, followed by shrieks, told Locke that the troll was accurate in his attacks.
“Go!” Locke called out as he caught up.
The pair made it to the end of the hall and to a locked door.
Locke tried to open it two times before sucking in a deep, chest-expanding breath, turning toward the army of approaching spiders, and hissing out, “You have a key, right?”
A glob of electrified plasma shot out from Locke’s wand, crashing into two spiders and reducing them to bubbling ectoplasm in a single heartbeat.
“This way!” Russell said, running toward the closest room on their right and back toward the approaching army.
“Damn it!” Locke cursed, throwing out sphere after sphere of wobbling plasma. The attacks hit and went through their intended targets before latching onto walls and floor like glue, eating any wolf legs that dared to step into them.
Russell disappeared into a side bedroom, and Locke followed immediately after, slamming the door behind him and locking it.
“This is Ghle’s room. We used to play in here when we were kids,” Russell explained as he began moving a table that was pushed up against a wall.
Locke found it odd to hear someone so young say the phrase when we were kids, but he shooed the thought away, focusing on the now.
With the table moved out of the way, Russell dropped to his knees and began pushing on stone blocks one at a time until one moved. Pulling it out as the spiders banged on the thick wooden door of the room, Russell reached further in, his entire arm disappearing as he lay on the ground.
The spiders outside began attacking as one, banging the door hard enough to rattle the hinges.
Turning toward their impending doom, Locke gulped seeing the brackets holding the door in place loosening with each strike.
“Hurry, please,” Locke urged, holding his wand at the ready and taking a defensive stance.
“Al…most…” Russell breathed out, struggling to do…whatever it was he was trying to do. “It was easier when we were smaller.”
The thumping sounds came to a stop, replaced by the sound of thick, sloshing liquid. It made the hairs on his arms and neck stand on end.
After a few seconds, the sound was over, and a low growl filled the silence.
“Merlin’s beard!” Locke barked, surprising himself with the term used by wizards that had apparently rubbed off on him. “Can you hurry this up?!”
A clicking sound rang out, followed by Russell exclaiming, “I got it!”
A small section of the stone wall swung inward on a hinge right as an enormous wolf’s paw slammed through the thick wooden door with a deafening crack.
“Shit!” Locke cried out as he dropped to his hands and knees and followed Russell into the hidden space between the walls.
Hearing himself call out the basic expletive, Locke thought that it wasn’t only the Council that was rubbing off on him. Where they had taught him to curse with wording such as Merlin’s beard!, John had rubbed off on him with the simpler route of words like shit!
Kicking the hidden stone entrance closed with a click, Locke held his breath as the big wooden door was destroyed with a loud smash, followed closely by stomping feet that sought out tasty prey.
Something grabbed Locke’s shoulder, making him gasp in preparation for a scream, until his eye latched onto Russell, who thumbed into the darkness.
Holding up his wand to further illuminate the tight space, Locke followed Russell, having to turn slightly sideways so his shoulders didn’t get caught.
Looking back the way he had come, Locke said a silent thanks to the universe for the angle in which he had shot on hands and knees into the crawl space. Had he been going straight on, he would have smashed his head into the opposite brick wall and left his feet out in the open while the monsters smashed into the room.
Turning back toward where Russell was barely visible, Locke moved to catch up, careful not to make a sound and alert their pursuers.
28
JOHN
With a long war cry that was somehow amplified by my expressionless mask, I pointed Mjolnir toward the creatures that had been going after Meli and let loose a blast of lightning that exploded the ground beneath them like a volley from military-grade artillery.
The nightmarish creatures vanished into violent sheets of ectoplasm as the electricity passed through them. I was almost taken aback by how easily they had been vanquished with my elemental attack.
My face slowly lifted toward the hole in the sky, and I tilted my head as a thought that I knew was of vast importance formed.
Depweg roared, and I tore my gaze from the sky and down to where my friend was being charged by a horde of disfigured creatures. Some had scales with powerful claws while others were covered with feathers and wielded long talons, but they were all completely devoid of color.
A part of me wondered why demons, who had bodies comprised of the same ectoplasm, always seemed to have some semblance of color compared to the Ether-controlled onyx monsters.
A bird of prey launched itself toward the ground where Depweg wasn’t looking, and I snapped my attention to what was important.
Manifesting my gladius coated in heavenflame, I blinked through the sky and split the obsidian bird in half with a wet thud.
The fact the impact had been wet drew my attention, and I scowled, seeing the creature had not been cauterized.
“What the…” I breathed out as I aimed my gladius at another flying creature and let loose with a torrent of heavenflame.
The birdlike monster screeched but continued its assault, though the fire remained, slowly eating away at it.
On instinct, I lifted Mjolnir and sent out a quick bolt of electricity that annihilated the thing in a puff of ectoplasm.
I glared at my weapons, my gaze alternating between the two, and came to a conclusion I didn’t like.
Depweg swung his enormous sword in a swiping arc, and several more creatures were cut down. But not for long.
Rain began to fall, just as it had at my mansion, and I was horrified to see the bodies begin to undulate as heads and bodies were regrown, effectively doubling the attackers in only a few short seconds.
With a quick gasp of understanding, I shot my gaze back toward the sky.
“Use electricity!” I cried out to Depweg, who was shifting uncomfortably in a defensive stance, his sword at the ready. “Put them down for good!”
“How?!” he called over his shoulder in his wolf voice; it sounded almost like his normal one.
“I…” I faltered. In my mind, I knew that it made sense—now that he was a vampire-werewolf hybrid— for him to be able to control elemental magic, like electricity. But we hadn’t trained for that.
Because the enemy was a bunch of dicks, I didn’t have enough time to formulate a plan before they resumed their attack.
“Shite!” I cried out in my Irish tongue as I swung Mjolnir through the air in an arc toward the enemies rushing Depweg.
A wave of electricity slammed into the skittering monsters, and they exploded like the first three that had been stalking Meli.
Arcs of raw, blue-tinged power danced across the now wet ground, with some finding a place to call it a day within Depweg’s leg.
“Ah!” Depweg cried out as a hand shot down to grab his thick thigh. To his credit, the soldier quickly regained his focus and brought the hand back up to hold his sword.
“Lilithdamnit!” I said as one word as I realized that I couldn’t just rain down lightning over the entire castle. At least not without hurting Depweg.
As if to emphasize my point, a single enemy moved from beyond Depweg’s periphery with horrifying speed. The creature had the head and torso of a baby, and the arms and legs of a spider. It skittered close to the ground and launched itself at my friend’s side, dripping fangs protruding from the childlike mouth.
“Depweg!” I called out in warning as the thing attached itself to one of the wolf’s long legs.
Hideous fangs began stabbing at Depweg’s armor in search of a single weak point. What was worse, my friend didn’t seem to notice the much smaller creature on his leg.
“He can’t feel it through the armor,” I mouthed in horror as my brain urgently worked for a solution that didn’t involve striking Depweg with a bolt of lightning.
Something latched onto my back, jolting me with the impact, and I instinctively swung Mjolnir up and over my head as if I were trying to bash my own spine, my eyes never leaving the spider-baby that was moving up toward Depweg’s hips. I was sure the armor had to have a breaking point for mobility, and that would be one of the places for it.
Electricity danced over my hammer as it swung, and a teeth-jarring tremor flew up both directions of my back at the impact, but the creature toppled away before melting into ectoplasm.
Daring to look away for a full second, I forced my eyes off of the spider-baby, and instead watched the birdlike creature that had attacked me to make sure of a hunch I had.
From beneath my expressionless mask, I smiled, seeing the monster did not get back up, even in the rain.
But my smile melted into a frown when I saw the spider had made it to Depweg’s junk, where I was confident there were gaps in the armor to allow for his legs to move.
Dripping fangs pulled back, ready to strike, and an eruption of determination flooded my veins.
Sucking in a deep breath and double-checking that my metaphorical batteries were full, I dipped into the fourth dimension. Everything froze in place, including the rain, which seemed to defy gravity and hover in fat drops.
With a force of will, I coated my flaming gladius in electricity enhanced by Mjolnir’s power, while simultaneously allowing heavenflame to coat my hammer. This resulted in a golden-winged badass covered from head to toe in angelic armor and dual wielding the hammer of a god and a sword made by God, both covered in heavenfire and elemental lightning.
Feeling the drag of energy I was expending being in the higher dimension, I blurred through the air, striking every creature that caught my eye in a blitzkrieg.
Both sword and hammer cut through or simply exploded the monsters who were frozen in time. White plumes of energy laced with blue arcs of electricity spilled from the eye slits of my expressionless gold mask.
The heavenflame remained on the creatures, burning them, while the electricity that I had interlaced with the fire did the real damage.
After what felt like almost a minute—relative to my perspective—I dropped from the fourth dimension. Blurring in front of Depweg, I swung my electrified hammer in an arc toward his package.
There was a squishing sound that I prayed came from the spider-baby being crushed and not my friend’s meat and potatoes.
Depweg cried out in surprise and pain as he stumbled backward, a free hand holding his junk. But as soon as he touched where the hammer had struck, he pulled back his hand to see the remnants of a spider monster evaporating in his palm.
My wings folded inward, joints clasping my breastplate just under my chin, and formed a golden cape as I took a knee, letting both my weapons vanish from sight.
I panted heavily as the rain resumed falling and the heavily armored Depweg whirled in place, confused as to how every single one of our enemies had exploded at once…and probably bewildered at the one that tried to touch him in his no-no spot without him noticing.
He turned to me, and impressed me with his almost instant understanding of what I had done. Then he dropped to both knees, letting his sword disappear, and grabbed his no doubt crushed balls with both hands. Sometimes, it just took a few seconds for the wave of nausea and pain to strike (Am I right, fellas?).
But unlike weak mortals, Depweg had been gifted with the power of preternatural regeneration—now more than ever, with the vampire aspect of the virus—and recovered in a few short seconds.
Even though he fully healed in a matter of moments, his hands never left their post, continuing to cup Depweg’s precious.
My hands and face tingled as I tried to catch my breath, afraid to look inward and see how much of my angelic batteries I had used in a single maneuver. But at least I had cleared the battlefield of all insurgents.
To my surprise, the rain stopped all at once, and Depweg and I looked up to see the clouds had ceased rippling outward from the hole in the sky.
The groan of countless steel girders bending all at once filled the air once more, making me shudder like someone was dragging their nails on a chalkboard.
Depweg got to his feet, summoning his Aztec sword once more, and I took a moment to appreciate his epic sci-fi armor.
A part of my mind couldn’t help but notice the contrast between his futuristic obsidian military armor and my ivory fantasy set. Obsidian and ivory…yin and yang. Just like the vision I had dreamed.
Fear flooded my heart as I remembered how I had dreamed that Depweg was the yin to my yang, the equal and opposite reflection of who I was as a person. He was always calm where I was chaotic, consistent where I was changing, and composed where I was capricious and careless.
But what felt wrong was that my armor was white while his was black, and a part of me contemplated how much he had changed while in the broken stream of time. Or perhaps the better question was, how much had he changed after his family had been murdered?
How much could a good man withstand before letting evil take hold in his heart?
Or maybe I was reading too much into the situation.
“It was just a dream,” I whispered to myself, remembering that Tezcatlipoca was an Aztec god ruling over many things, including obsidian. It wasn’t just Hell that had dominion over the dark stone; Depweg had that power now, too.
Depweg was the yin to my yang, but the yin also needed the yang to coexist in perfect balance. It didn’t matter who was what. He would always be there for me, and I would always be there for him.
The still image of Depweg’s mate and child lying in a hole in the ground shocked me like an electrician’s apprentice who had lied on his resume.
Looking at my friend, who was still peering up at the sky, I asked myself, he’s still my friend, right?
Just because he was here, fighting beside me, didn’t mean all had been forgiven. It simply meant that he wanted to save the world…and Meli—the real Meli, who very much still existed in our river of time.
