Fall From Grace, page 26
part #9 of the Preternatural Chronicles Series
“You haven’t tipped enough to spit on me, big boy! Over-the-clothes stuff only!”
The hulking monster slowly turned, stabbing into the stone with each step, and regarded me with his ultracreepy face.
Each of the snakes on the ground began to writhe before rushing at me in unison, drawing the manliest “Eek!” that had ever been eeked.
The image of Taylor flashed in my mind, trapped in his prison of ice to prevent the venom from the attached snakes from coursing through his veins.
“Oh shit,” I said, understanding that even one of these little snakey-snakes could probably kill my soul.
The monster smiled, seeing my thoughts telegraphed as revealing facial expressions.
Under the circumstances, I did the only thing that seemed tactically feasible: I ran.
43
“No, no, no, no, NOOO!” I cried out in my best Cleveland Brown impression from Family Guy while running around the ample but not overly large cavern, hissing snakes snapping at the air just behind me.
“Bad snakes! Bad! John no like!”
One of the longer snakes, which I had apparently clipped near its tail, lunged at me from only a foot or so away.
Doing a little jump and spinning in midair, I cut through the thing’s head, splitting it right where the gaping jaws met.
As the pieces fell in slow motion, I imagined a big, red, flashing button in the control room of my mind that said Exit. I could leave, return to my body, and free my soul from the perils of extra death, where I would spend eternity in Sheol. Maybe it would take centuries to find Da on the beach of eternity, with waves of oblivion lapping at my toes. Or maybe I’d never find him at all, and my soul would eventually rot into the dust that made up Sheol.
As was my mannerism, I shook my head to clear the dangerous thoughts of giving up. Magni needed me, as did the rest of creation.
The scene around me returned to normal time as I freed myself from the rampant thoughts that moved at the speed of light.
Swinging my flaming blades around as if I were a skilled performer, I smoothly cut down each of the snakes that leaped at me. My resolve sucked out the anxiety of battle and gave me a clear focus that I had only experienced in my fiercest of fights. With each situation that raised the stakes, I grew more and more accustomed to the constantly changing scenarios, making it easier to calm my nerves and free my thoughts for the fight.
As the last of the snakes were cut down into little pieces, the whole lot of them began to sizzle and fade into black ash instead of ectoplasm.
Raising my eyes to the snarling monster, I smiled and said, “Looks like the stakes are real for both of us, huh?”
The creature took a step forward, puffing into a cloud of dark smoke that coalesced into the Tall Man once more.
“I serve my Lord, while you serve only yourself, abomination. It would be a great honor to perish in servitude to the Ancient Ones,” he declared with the conviction of a mindless zealot. “I do not fear oblivion…do you?”
“I guess we’ll see if you’re scared, won’t we?”
In response, the Tall Man summoned a stream of blazing, purple light to surround his fist before extending it into the semblance of a sword.
“Shall we see whose god is more powerful here?” he asked, holding up his weapon.
I mirrored his action, raising both blades into the shape of a cross, showcasing my belief with exquisite symbolism, and signaling the start of our final fight in much the same way martial artists did.
Holding the symbol of the cross, my blades wafting heavenflames skyward, I said the first prayer that came to me. It was one I remembered hearing at my grandmother’s funeral when I was but a lad. I could recall my father lifting his trembling chin, letting the words sink in to provide him strength.
With a whisper, I began.
“May you see God’s light on the path ahead
When the road you walk is dark.
May you always hear,
Even in your hour of sorrow,
The gentle singing of the lark.”
Letting my blades glide across one another with a shhhheeeen, I took a defensive stance with my left leg out in front and my body turned, producing less of a target for my opponent and preparing for the battle to begin.
The strength of my voice grew as I looked up at the imprisoned young man that I was not going to let down, thinking about all we had lost up to this point.
“When times are hard may hardness
Never turn your heart to stone.
May you always remember
When the shadows fall—”
Returning my narrowed gaze to my opponent, I bellowed at the top of my lungs,
“YOU DO NOT WALK ALONE!”
With the weight of eternity on my shoulders, my eyes blazed with white plumes of raw energy as a long war cry shook the cavern walls.
Holding all of my friends and family in my heart, I rushed forward, and faced off with oblivion.
44
The herald of the universe-eating monster stood his ground as I blurred forward, his cosmic purple sword at the ready.
I led with my left sword pointed straight forward, aiming for the Tall Man’s heart, while holding my right gladius cocked above my head in preparation for a downward slash.
With alarming ease, the creature from another universe swiped my lead sword away while stepping forward and elbowing me directly in the face with a sickening crunch of collapsing bone and cartilage.
On instinct, I rolled with the momentum of the attack, letting myself fall backward as I slashed down with my right hand.
The tremor of impact suggested I had hit something, and I finished my backward fall by tucking my right arm under my torso and pivoting until my forearm hit the ground. As my lower half was in the process of rotating, I used that momentum to bring my left knee into the back of where I hoped one of the Tall Man’s own knees were.
Instead of hitting dead-on and sending my opponent to the ground, my swinging leg hit the back of his calf, which only made him stumble a bit but managed to stay upright with arms that windmilled.
With a sudden lack of depth perception from the elbow that crunched into my nose and one of my eye sockets, I saw the Tall Man quickly regaining his footing, and I lashed out with an upward sidekick to his pelvis.
I wasn’t aiming for his balls; I wasn’t even sure if he had any. Instead, I wanted to throw him off balance by striking at a thick section of bone and flesh with a low center of gravity.
The intended effect manifested itself with a look of surprise on the creature’s face as his legs were lifted off the ground and then flung outward behind him. It reminded me of someone standing on a long carpet and having the Terminator come up from behind and yank it out from under them.
His feet became parallel with his torso before he even started falling downward, giving me a perfect opportunity.
Still lying on my side with my leg extended out, I used my right arm to fling my body toward my left, using a gladius to rake at the Tall Man’s exposed torso just where his single-button suit connected.
With everything happening as if in slow motion, I cut a long gash. The Tall Man, with alarming speed, regained his composure and shifted the point of his purple sword into my right shoulder. He might have been aiming for my heart, but I was in the process of spinning. While it was a blessing I had been moving to avoid being stabbed in the chest, the movement actually caused his sword to not only pierce my deltoid but cut completely through my shoulder socket.
Time returning to normal speed, I let myself roll for several feet to put distance between us, my shoulder sending white-hot jolts of electricity up my neck and into my brain, stunning all thought.
There was the sound of dress shoes striking stone, and I looked up to see the Tall Man lifting himself into a standing position. His free hand lazily checked the cut across his stomach, as if the wound was nothing more than a mild paper cut to him.
Scrambling to my feet, I raised my arms in a defensive stance, only to realize that my right sword was being held low at my side.
Risking a glance at my shoulder, I saw that it had been obliterated, leaving a gaping wound with tattered flesh hanging loosely. There was no bone that could be seen, which indicated it had been turned to dust.
At least the cosmic purple sword had cauterized the wound; otherwise, I might bleed out, if such a thing was possible for a soul to do.
Remembering my time in Hell with Stef and Jacob after saving them from the snake demon, I focused on our conversation about needing another’s soul to heal my own. There didn’t seem to be any soul-jerky just lying around, which meant that I had to heal it by using portions of my own soul-body and weakening the rest of me to do it.
But what choice did I have?
Allowing my body to cannibalize parts of itself to fill in the missing bone and flesh was my only recourse, and I began to do just that while holding up my left sword defensively.
I could feel myself growing weaker as my soul thinned to repair the major damage I had sustained.
“It would appear my god is more powerful here,” the Tall Man said with an annoying dash of pleasure in his tone.
“Fuck your go—” was all I could get out before the creature rushed forward, purple sword blurring through the air toward my neck.
I completely relaxed my quads, letting my body quickly drop toward the ground as I lowered my head, and tried to block with the gladius of my good arm.
To my chagrin, my sword shattered, sending a violent jolt of lightning up my nerves from the loss of energy and making me collapse the rest of the way to the ground.
“Nooooo,” I squeezed out of tight lips as every muscle contracted all at once, including the bits that had started reconnecting in my shoulder, bringing with it another level of pain that stole my breath.
The tip of the purple sword was pushed in front of my good eye, and I noticed it humming with power.
Following the blade of the cosmic weapon, I stared into the Tall Man’s face as he hissed with an eerie voice, “Welcome…to oblivion…” and lunged.
45
Power rushed into me, and I blurred my head to the side as the tip of the blade pierced the ground, turning the metaphysical stone into magma where it touched.
Lashing out with my left hand as I resummoned my gladius, I severed the Tall Man’s sword-wielding arm at the elbow, drawing a long shriek that built in a crescendo. The weird part was, I didn’t know if it was from pain or indignation.
Rolling to my side, I got to my feet, feeling incredible strength flood my body; even my shoulder finished healing in a few seconds. My soul-body felt stronger somehow, even after repairing itself.
Lifting both of my flaming swords, I noticed how much brighter and energetic the heavenflame was, and clanged my blades together a few times, creating sparks of unbridled energy.
The Tall Man opened his mouth, which split once more from ear to ear, and spit a glob of venom at my face.
Depth perception returned from my face healing, I instinctively brought up my left forearm, summoning an ivory shield to stop the attack.
To my absolute delight, the shield manifested, prompting a, “Fuck yeah!”
Lowering it, I stood up a little straighter and slung the venom on the ground, where it bubbled into the stone. My angelic shield, on the other hand, didn’t even notice the attack.
From the shadows, a figure of a man stepped into the light, drawing my attention with narrowed eyes.
My bottom jaw told my brain fuck this! and tried to leap to the ground, getting caught by the skin on my cheeks where it hung agape as Ulric stared back at me—hands casually clasped behind his back. I took note that he didn’t move to help, and had probably been in the shadows for a while, watching me dance with death.
Letting the sword and shield drop from my left arm, I moved my index finger toward my bottom jaw, pushing on my chin until my mouth was shut.
“Always the jester, John,” he chided before pulling one of his hands from around his back and pretending to inspect his nails. “Can we hurry this along?”
With strength pulsing through my body, I closed the distance to the Tall Man, who had foolishly turned to regard Ulric, and swung both of my blades right at his neck.
My opponent moved as if a rough edit had spliced several frames of film, catching both of my swinging swords with an identical purple blade that manifested in his remaining hand faster than I could perceive. Though he only had one hand, I had the distinct impression that this was only going to make the fight more evenly matched, even though Ulric was clearly doing something Grand Master Warlocky to grant me power.
* * *
But Ulric having that ability was tickling something at the back of my mind. Thoughts for later
“Gonna help?!” I called out to Ulric as the Tall Man pushed against my swords and sent me stumbling back a few paces.
“I prefer to let fate decide,” Ulric answered with a dark undertone of fascination. At that moment, I knew he would let me die.
Movement on the ground caught the edge of my attention, and I dared a glance to see that the severed arm was sizzling into ash.
From above, Magni let out a weak, drunken moan, and I shot my gaze up to see a shimmer of light just beneath his translucent skin. Which meant that all— A flash of purple near my face made me drop to a crouch and roll backward, right as the cosmic sword cut through where I had just been standing.
Coming up to my feet, I sent out a quick blast of heavenflame with my right sword to the monster’s face, and followed it up with a quick lunge with my left, stabbing toward center mass.
Moving faster than anything I had ever seen, which made anxiety stiffen my muscles, the Tall Man darted to the side, parrying my stab and then bashing me in the face with the hilt of a sword made of pure, cosmic energy.
Flesh bubbled in an instant as teeth broke free, tumbling around in my mouth like porcelain coffee mugs thrown into a clothes dryer, shattering further with each jostle against one another.
Turning my head with the blow, I whipped my upper torso around in a quick circle, similar to a heavy metal singer flinging their long hair like a windmill, and completed the rotation on the other side of the sword.
Surprise crossed the Tall Man’s features as I spit blood and jagged teeth into his face, aiming directly for his wide eyes.
Blinded, my attacker wildly swung his sword where my head was, and I ducked while swiping my left gladius across his torso.
Unlike the first time, my blade dug deep, finishing the strike by cutting off the rest of his disfigured arm just beneath the shoulder.
It plopped to the ground, and I intentionally took a few steps back, putting the fallen arm between the Tall Man and me.
The monster screamed, his jaw splitting apart like a serpent in an effort to let all of his rage be heard. It rattled the walls of the cavern.
Just as I had hoped, the arm began to sizzle, and I cautiously looked up to see light shimmering beneath Magni’s skin once more.
Exhausted eyes fluttered open, and Magni drunkenly lifted his head.
“Magni!” I shouted.
With what looked like all the energy he could muster, Magni managed to turn and face down at me, blinking rapidly as if to restart his brain.
A blast of purple fire smashed into my chest, sending me flying backward to crash into the cavern wall as if the torrent had come from a fireman’s hose.
I summoned my ivory shield and pushed against the hideous purple flames that seemed to suck the light in rather than project it.
“AAAAHHHHH!” I bellowed, both from exertion and the fire from another universe that was eating at my soul.
The power with which the Tall Man pushed against me with the torrent of flames made it so that I was standing almost straight up on the wall, my shield catching the brunt of the force.
With my free hand, I furiously patted at the flames, desperate to extinguish the alien fire which felt unexplainably cold instead of the white-hot I had grown accustomed to. It was as if the purple inferno was stealing my energy rather than combusting my soul and releasing the bonds of my metaphysical body in a process known as pyrolysis. (Thanks, Wikipedia!)
Focus! I screamed inwardly, alarmed at how fast my life force was being stolen from me.
An idea came to me that would both extinguish the flames eating my soul and get me out of harm’s way…hopefully.
Summoning my wings, I crouched against the wall, and then exploded forward and up at an angle, hoping to make my way close to where the Tall Man would, if I was lucky, freeze in place with a look of huh? If my plan was accurate, I would be given plenty of time to cut his head off, save Magni, kick Ulric in the balls, and then go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for this all to blow over…or something approximating that.
Only problem was, I sucked at plans.
Instead of flying just over the Tall Man’s head, I was rocketing toward Magni, who was now fully awake and staring at me with wide eyes. I mean, I couldn’t blame him. If I saw a flaming vampire soaring directly at me with angel wings, sword, and shield, I’d probably shit my pants—if I could, I mean.
As I locked eyes with Magni, something clicked into place, and I knew it wasn’t an accident that I was flying toward him instead of the Tall Man.
My body moved as if I were nothing more than a mindless puppet, and I let my sword and shield vanish as my right hand reached into my side coat pocket.
Everything shifted to slow motion while the flames continued to sap the life force that made up my soul, making me grow more and more transparent with each passing second.
Using my wings to stop my momentum right in front of where Magni hung in the air, I pulled out the mask Hecate had given me, and held it out for Magni to see as purple flames continued to consume me.
If I was going to die, I wanted Magni to have Ludvig’s breathing apparatus. It had been part of his dad’s gear loadout even before adopting Magni as his son. It was an identifying part of who Ludvig was, holding with it priceless sentimental value to the young man.
