Hope your holidays went well, and that your New Year is even
better! Thanks always to Kelly Pekrul and Jamas Enright for the
pre-reads, and again to Enright for the Frank Bennington scene.
Good luck to everyone in the RACCies!
Enjoy!
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DERELICT Press Presents
The twenty-fourth issue of
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" Shatter "
A psuedo-Acraphobe title
._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._.'COVER`._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._.
The cover is black, with Dirmarw lying vertically down it. Paytan is
reflected in his blade, face upturned and eyes closed. The rivulets of
blood that pour down his blade slide down her cheeks like red tears and
cover her horns, until she looks almost human again.
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" We do not what we ought;
What we ought not, we do;
And lean upon the thought
That chance will bring us through."
-- Matthew Arnold, _Empedocles on Etna_
Savannah winced as the summoning came up around them. There was
a blast of heat, a bright light, and a wind so hot and dry that she got a
nosebleed. The last thing she saw as the shack was torn away from them
was the look of utter defeat in Paytan's eyes. Then the world was gone,
and they were drowning in the maelstrom on the way to hell.
She clenched her legs around the body of the hoverbike, clinging
to Paytan's forearm for all she was worth as Brittany's arms tightened
around her own waist. The heat blasted into them, along with a light so
bright it was blinding. The wind swarmed to hurricane proportions, and
Savannah's lids snapped shut. They tumbled head over heels, falling, and
she felt Paytan's arm begin to slip from her fingers.
She clenched her hand, so tightly that she felt Paytan's bone
twist beneath the skin as they fell. She saw the look in Paytan's eyes
just before they left, saw her friend sitting in the kitchen, hand rising
up to tug at a horn yet again, as if it would just disappear. The thought
turned her muscles like iron, her grip tighter than any vise.
In the end she still lost.
The next howl of wild neon flame tore Paytan away, and Savannah's
fingers were holding empty air. She heard Allen's scream rise above the
storm, full of anger and the frustration of loss, audible for only an
instant until the wind tore that away too.
The front of the bike hit the ground hard. Time seemed to still
after the first concussion, leaving her suspended in mid-air praying that
the first thing she'd hit the ground with would be legs or side, not head
or neck. Then the earth rose up fast beneath her, and the world went
black.
Not much time could have passed when Savannah came to again.
Allen was cursing violently off to her left, and Brittany moaned faintly.
There was dirt in her mouth, a thick taste like rotten bread and old
blood, and something squirmed between her fingers. She jerked her hand
away and started forcing herself to her feet.
"Is everyone alright?" called Brit. Allen cursed in reply, and
Savannah raised her head hesitantly, beginning to crack open her eyes.
"I'm good," she said, and would have said more if Brit hadn't
gasped. She waited for her pupils to widen out a bit, and Brit formed
into her view, staring straight at her.
"Savannah you've got blood all over - "
"Oh, oh that," Savannah brought her hand up in front of her eyes,
a thick smear of red running across it, seeping just a little into the
thin lines in her skin. She must have thrown it in front of her face as
she fell. "It's nothing. The summoning gave me a nosebleed."
Brit gave her a quizzical look, but she could tell that the other
girl's attention lay elsewhere. All around them, looking for danger, for
movement or a clue as to where in hell they were. Looking for Paytan.
Brit pulled a bunch of kleenex out of one of the pockets of her
trenchcoat, and tossed them over.
Savannah caught them as they came in, and started carefully
wiping at her face and hands, trying to figure out if the blood had gone
anywhere else. It helped not to concentrate on the situation itself, in
case she started to cry. She could hear Allen moving around behind her,
gathering weapons from where they lay scattered.
Brit knelt, and started to lever the bike up from the ground.
"We've got to find the Demonlord that summoned her. We can try to work it
just like last time. Kill the demon and Paytan is free."
"How are we going to kill a Demonlord?" asked Savannah, dragging
her gaze up to the horizon. They were at the edge of a forest, frail,
bone-white trees breaking off into a plain of mirror-like black rock. At
the edge of the forest, the trees hung crippled over the smooth stone.
They had no reflection.
"Guns," broke in Allen, "Guns and rage. The Demonlord won't be
expecting us, just her. We can surprise it, maybe even get in a kill
shot. She said that's what Jynx did to one when she got dragged in here."
A slow breeze blew in, faint screams tucked away inside the
whisper of it through the trees. In the distance the air parted like
curtains, and Savannah saw on the horizon a castle, all in black. It
crouched at the edge of sight, eyes narrowed and tail lashing, the spine
of the roof hunched deep and ready to spring. She closed her eyes, and
looked away.
By this time Brittany had righted the bike, and gotten most of
the guns and material back on board. She swung one leg over the seat, and
the warm yellow light stuttered to life beneath the machine as it rose to
hover over the ground. She turned to the horizon, and the dark thing
there that reached toward the sky with grasping towers and greedy walls.
"You think the castle?" Brit asked.
"I think the castle." Allen nodded, and finished loading a spare
gun with an ominous clack. All of them managed to fit onto the bike, with
Allen standing on a footboard, Savannah braced over some of the weapons,
Binky on the handlebars, and Brit driving. The engine gave off a high
whine and lifted the bike slowly higher, setting out across the plain at
a swiftly increasing rate.
Behind them, back in the trees, something moved.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
"I thought she was over that already," said Dust, as Censor Girl
knelt and sobbed, beating her fists on the floor.
"Guess not," whispered Hooded Ho'od Win Jr., re-emerging from the
shadows she had dodged into when Censor Girl began to glow. She took a
few tiny steps toward the cyborg. "Hey, are you, um, okay? Hey, Lady?"
"Her team must have lost," said Mr.Exposition, coming around a
pile of boxes. "So they abandoned her. Guys, Rebecca's not looking too
good."
"Is she still breathing?" asked Mr.Fossavellus.
"Yes."
"Good enough then. We need to leave this place, now."
"Wait a minute." Kid Camouflage emerged behind Mr.Exposition, one
hand on her hip. "Rebecca looks like she's on her deathbed, Bryan's been
_who knows where_," she spared Bryan a Look, which he was good enough to
wince away from, "and Censor Girl is a wreck. We can't go anywhere!"
"We'll carry Rebecca, and I'm sure Bryan won't make such a
mistake again. Leave the cyborg. She promised us power and broke that
promise. We don't need her."
"Hey, wait a sec," Bryan took a step forward, "She may be creepy
as hell, but we can't just leave her."
Mr.Fossavellus glared. "She does us no good, and we've enough
problems already."
Kid Camouflage crossed her arms. "No, I agree with Bryan."
"You have no choice in the matter. I saved you from the jaws of
death - "
"The Reality's jaws." Bryan clenched and unclenched his fists,
the memory of Jenna's sweet smile an ache in his heart. "Who are they?
Who did you save us from?" Mr. Fossavellus didn't reply.
There was no warning, only the feeling of motion and the flash of
sun off bright gold wings. Censor Girl was picked up and hurled across
the room into the wall with a scream, cut off sharply when she slammed
into the cement.
"What have you done with my friends!?" Kismet lashed out with a
wing, hitting Mr.Exposition in the head. "Where are they!?" The boy fell
unconscious to the ground, and Kismet swung back to Censor Girl, giving
her a solid kick to the gut.
Hooded Ho'od Win Jr. dove for the shadows and was gone, while
Dust cursed loudly. Bryan charged the first thing that came to hand, a
stone the size of his fist, and threw it, already searching for something
bigger to use. The rock hit Kismet's wing and burst, sending shards of
stone pinging off the metal feathers. A few slivers lodged in her back
and Kismet winced, but ignored them.
She lifted Censor Girl from the floor, both hands clenched around
the woman's neck. "You touched me," she snarled. "It hurt." Censor Girl
hung limply in her grasp, so Kismet tightened it. The cyborg jerked, and
looked up.
Tears covered her face, and the skin of her non-cybernetic side
was blotchy and red. Kismet nearly dropped her. Then something kicked her
knees out, and Censor Girl's full weight landed on top of her as they
both went down.
Kismet heaved the weeping cyborg off her and threw herself to her
feet while Censor Girl rolled away with a clang. This wasn't how things
were supposed to be at all. The villains never cried when Paytan or
Brittany attacked them!
She swung a wing wildly behind her, and felt it slam across
someone's waist. Kid Camouflage flickered into view, hitting the ground
loosely and shoulder-first. Another rock exploded off Kismet's shoulder.
Censor Girl lay crying on the ground.
This wasn't how things were supposed to go at all.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Paytan landed on her knees on the obsidian plain, pain jolting up
through her legs to her hips. Dirmarw thunked point-first into the stone
in front of her, driving into it a third of the way up his blade. A few
feet away the walls of a castle began, curving up toward the grey sky
with claws outstretched. They were glass smooth, like the plain, with no
gate or drawbridge in evidence.
Paytan waited for a few seconds, curled over her knees, palms
flat against the dark mirror of the ground. Only her reflection greeted
her there, staring back with the same dark-circled, empty eyes. A drop of
blood spattered onto the stone from her right arm, where Savannah had
tried to keep hold of her, nails tearing their way across skin.
"Why am I still in control?" she whispered to her reflection, but
it only mimicked her. She felt Dirmarw shift forward, the full weight of
the sword's consciousness coming up to rest alongside hers. His voice
rasped to life inside her mind.
I don't know, said the sword. I don't feel anything.
Paytan nodded grimly and pushed herself up, wrapped one hand
around Dirmarw's hilt and yanked the sword out of the stone with a sound
like sharpening knives. She was running almost before his point cleared
the ground.
Away from the castle and headed out across the plane, but even
before her second step hit the ground she felt a third thing stir within
her, Dirmarw thrashing away, as her muscles turned and betrayed her like
they did every time, answering to the stronger master. Before her third
step hit the ground her body was no longer her own.
To the sword's credit, Dirmarw tried to fulfill his part of the
bargain and blank out her mind, tried to cushion and blind her from
whatever may happen next, but the other power pushed him aside like a
weak puppy. She would have to face the Demonlord full on, fully conscious
of her helplessness for the first time since she blood-bonded with
Dirmarw. It felt like the first time ever. She would have cried, but the
other twisted her face into a smile just then, more bared teeth than
anything, and turned her around.
The castle wall had spread open, two halves of the black stone
peeling up and out like flesh, leaving nothing but a gaping slit into
darkness. The thing walked her forward, Dirmarw still clenched tightly in
one hand.
She thought of Brittany, of Savannah and Allen out there
somewhere with the demons and the dying. She hoped they were okay, as the
darkness and the shadows swept over her head and enveloped her. She hoped
they would survive. Then she let the wild panic consume her mind, turn
the world into nothing more than red colors and a long, silent scream.
PAYTAN!
But the howling of the wind was too strong, and she was home
alone again like that first night so long ago, with the rain beating
against the kitchen window and staining it red with blood.
PAYTAN!!
But she was standing on a small hill made of bones and rock,
thousands of white wormlike demons crawling all over it and all over
hill. Look closely enough and you could see their lungs pulsing away
inside them, pale pink shapes just beneath the skin. She felt them
scaling her, the faint breath against the side of her neck, until a tiny
claw lodged in the corner of her eye.
Paytan, please. Please. Before you never wake up again, cried
Dirmarw.
She was in a dark hallway, still walking, her legs moving against
her will. The last echoes of Dirmarw's voice rang away inside her mind.
Good, breathed the sword. Don't lose control now, girl.
Paytan wanted to yell at him then, take the sword and fling it
away from her as hard as she could. But her body would not answer the
command, and she realized the one thing about the summoning that was a
godsend for her sometime-enemy, sometime-friend. Dirmarw could say
whatever he wanted to her now, and she couldn't do a damn thing about it.
Do you remember what I have taught you?
Paytan tried to indicate assent, thinking yes yes yes yes.
Good, said the sword. Demonlords are strong, but for all that
they are also overconfident. I will work on breaking his hold, and if we
get the chance... run.
Paytan would have laughed. What could they do, two fools without
enough power between them to stop a summoning, let alone the summoner
itself? And even though he had not taught her how to speak with her
mind, Dirmarw sensed somehow the despair in her thoughts.
This will work, child, he hissed. My people remain unburied, and
their souls are not at peace. And you, I assume, have your own worthless
business to conclude. If I spring us from the control and you aren't
ready to act upon it, I will tear your weak little mind in two myself. Do
you hear me?
She did not reply, simply let dark despair trickle slowly into
her thoughts.
DO YOU HEAR ME?
Yes Dirmarw, I hear you, she thought. I suppose we are each
blinded by our own form of denial.
Then the hallway turned, and the inside of the castle was nothing
but a huge courtyard with a massive throne in the center. And of course
the Demonlord, sitting upon it, watching them with a smile in his eyes.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
"I-It's gotten cold all of a sudden," whispered Savannah, her
face dug into Brittany's back. They roared across the black plain, the
stone throwing back the yellow glow from the hovercraft and underlighting
all their faces.
And it had, the wind of their passage moving from chill down the
temperature scale until she could see the ice beginning to form on the
ends of Brittany's hair. She could see Allen shivering out of the corner
of her eye, his head ducked low to take what shelter he could behind his
arm.
Allen nodded grimly and they skimmed forward, engine still
straining to maintain both the pace and the weight. It got colder.
"Heads up," said Allen.
"What?" Brittany gunned the engine, coaxing another burst of
speed from the hoverbike. She didn't turn her head, but Savannah did,
peering back the way they had come. The demons were coming fast across
the plain, dirty azurine manes glittering off tossing heads, twisted
hooves beating into the stone. Faster than the hoverbike.
"Brittany, I think we need to speed up."
"If I could 'Vannah, I would," muttered Brit, but she pressured
the gas anyway, the engine's howl turning into a scream louder than any
noise a demon could make. The body of the bike began to rattle and shake,
and Savannah heard Brittany whisper a few words of prayer to the goldfish
sitting on the handlebars. Allen just cursed.
The ground was nothing but a blur beneath them, icicle teeth of
the wind turning hair to frozen whips of crystal hard enough to cut skin.
Savannah felt a trail of blood begin to drip down the line of her chin,
and closed her eyes.
She heard Allen shift uncomfortably, and lean closer into the
bike. His hands must be nearly frozen by now. "They're still gaining!"
"If I force this any more we will all be tiny bits of people!"
shouted Brittany.
"Throw Binky at 'em! It might slow them down!"
Savannah heard Brittany kick him. She wasn't sure how she
managed, what with her feet on the pedals and all, but the sound of
tennis shoe hitting shin was unmistakable. Allen grunted, but stayed on
the bike.
"Fine, whatever. Do you have any better ideas!?"
"Yes," said Brit, then the world was spinning so hard and fast
that Savannah felt herself rise off the seat, until the only things
keeping her from flying off were her arms around Brit's waist. Allen
made a noise between a scream and a curse, lost his grip and found it
again on Savannah's shoulder.
She clenched her teeth as his fingers slammed around the bone and
clenched, grinding nerves into bone. Then they were sliding slowly away,
taking her skin with them, and she risked taking one arm from around Brit
and grabbing onto his elbow with it. The bike skidded slowly out of the
one-eighty, Allen still gripping with enough intensity to crush a brick,
and Savannah opened her eyes.
The BigGuns went off, a blaze of yellow energy that cracked into
the stone in front of the demons, sending onyx shards into the air.
Brittany gently took Savannah's hand off her waist and hopped off the
bike.
Allen took his hand from Savannah's shoulder and grabbed Brit's
wrist "Brittany, what the hell are you doing!?"
"Buying us some time. Go save Paytan." She lifted Binky gently
off the handlebars and hit another button. The BigGuns blazed forth
again, enough to slow the demons down, but not to stop them. The wind
brought the noise of their hooves clicking against the stone, a susurrus
of oily voices hidden in the beats.
Savannah lunged half-off the bike and grabbed Brit's shoulders.
"No way. Get back on here."
"Exactly. You're slowing us down, dammit, c'mon." Allen glared at
her, reached out give her a hand up, but Brittany shrugged Savannah's
hands from her shoulders and backed away. The demons hurtled closer, the
click-clicking running up and down Savannah's spine.
"If they catch up with us then Paytan's going to be dealing with
the Demonlord on her own," said Brit, staring into Allen's eyes. He
opened his mouth, then stopped, and closed it again, face gone dead. No
one said anything.
"No. Absolutely not," Savannah struggled around, glaring at her
cousin with all the force she could muster, her power narrowing and
strengthening the gaze until it must have been enough to melt diamond.
Brittany met her gaze with a look of iron, but even she had to glance
down after a moment. "Get back on the bike."
"No, she's right," said Allen. Savannah was too focused to do
anything more than feel the bike shift as he straddled it, his back to
her as he gripped the handlebars. She was too busy looking at Brit
looking away from her, the driven stubbornness still etching her features.
"We'll leave you half the guns, okay?" he asked, and Brit nodded,
eyes darting back to the oncoming horde. When he pressed a gun into
Brittany's hand, then turned to lift a bag of guns from the side of the
bike and drop then on the ground Savannah realized that he was serious,
that he meant what he was doing, and the panic hit.
"No!" she had her leg most of the way over the back of the bike
when Allen's arm came around and swept her back onto the seat. "No!
Brittany, get back on the bike! Allen - "
"Sorry 'Vannah," said Brit, looking up again to meet her gaze, a
tiny smile hovering at the edge of her mouth. Allen kicked in the gas,
and the bike surged in a tight circle then thundered toward the castle.
Savannah screamed and clawed at him, but he used one of his hands to
capture her wrists and hold her on the bike. She slammed her head into
his spine in frustration, felt him jerk, and did it again.
Then she twisted around as far as he would let her and looked
back, toward her cousin in the patchwork trenchcoat.
Brittany glanced at the bag of guns on the ground, then at the
revolver Allen had pressed into her hand. She tossed it behind her and
left the bag unopened, turning back to the oncoming demons, with their
tossing heads and azurine fur. She walked toward a low, bare shrub, and
gently set Binky down beside it. Then she slid the trenchcoat from her
shoulders and laid it carefully down to cover him.
The demons kept on coming, so close that the sound of their
hooves must have swept around her like rain. Brittany took ten measured
paces away from Binky's shrub, rolling up her sleeves as she went, then
stopped, completely unarmed. And waited.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Another exploding piece of garbage had thrown Kismet off long
enough for Camouflage Kid to get back up again and deliver a solid kick
to the small of the winged girl's back. But Kismet had managed to stay up
somehow, spinning to face KC with outspread wings that ensured everyone
else kept a good distance from her.
She was better in the air, but there wasn't time enough to take a
breath, let alone get off the ground. She bared her teeth and punched at
KC. The sidekick-nee-villain just grabbed the fist and yanked, bringing
her knee up to slam into Kismet's stomach when she fell forward. Kismet
gagged, and brought her wings in from the side to thwak into KC's back.
Somewhere off to the side another piece of trash exploded, sending bits
of shrapnel into her left arm. Kismet could feel the air begin to stir, a
sign of Dust's power at work.
Then a metal leg swept beneath both KC and Kismet, and they were
on the ground, rolling away from each other in surprise. KC was on her
feet first, backing until her shoulder blades rested against a wall.
Kismet came up to her knees and stopped, one arm curled protectively over
her stomach. Censor Girl stood in the place they had been fighting, the
glowing red eye setting up a curious counterpoint to the tears that still
streaked one side of her face.
"Enough," the cyborg held out her arms, and all of a sudden she
didn't look scared, or even all that imposing. She just looked tired, as
if she had aged thirty years in a minute. "Enough fighting." Kismet
struggled to her feet, and Censor Girl turned toward her.
"Why are you doing this?" asked the cyborg, watching Kismet. The
winged girl stared back, at loss for words.
"Because you attacked me. Because you're, you're a villain!
Aren't you?" Did people do this kind of thing normally during battle? Had
she made some kind of faux pas to cause this to happen?
"Most of the time, I suppose I am. But could we stop all this,
for just a moment please?" Censor Girl rested her forehead against steel
knuckles for a moment, intensifying the shadowed lines around her eyes.
"It's all getting so very _old_."
Even the JBoNV stopped at that, not quite sure what to say.
Kismet opened her mouth, then closed it again. She hadn't read about
anything like this in the encyclopedias. Or even heard about it for that
matter. She opened her mouth again, about to apologize in case there was
something she hadn't properly understood about fighting.
Then Rebecca SCREAMED.
Everyone in the room jerked away from the sound, heads snapping
toward the junior sorceress. She lay on the makeshift bed of blankets
that KC and Dust had set up for her, the whites of her eyes showing
all the way round the iris, back arched so intensely that her spine was
twisted into a question mark.
Dust reached her first, as Rebecca took another breath and sent a
twin to the previous ear-shattering shriek through the warehouse's stale
air. Dust grabbed Rebecca's shoulders and forced them to the ground,
nearly getting jabbed in the eye by a wildly grabbing hand. "Somebody
help me out here! KC!"
Kid Camouflage knelt on Rebecca's other side, pressing on her
sternum, trying to get her back to unarch as the junior sorceress
screamed again, muscles tensing so tightly she seemed to leap from the
ground. Thin smoke began to leak around the bandages in her palms.
"What's going on?" KC looked up at Fossavellus, but it was Mr.Exposition
who answered.
"It's sucking out her soul," he whispered, sitting up and rubbing
his head.
"It's _what_?" Dust screamed, trying to keep hold of Rebecca's
shoulders as the other girl thrashed. The top of her skull slammed into
Dust's chin, and she lost her grip. Rebecca curled into a fetal position,
and the smoke continued to pour from her into the air, coming out of her
mouth and ears now in great ripples of grey.
"The demon sword," said Mr.Fossavellus, "Whatever it's doing it
needs power."
Kismet looked toward Censor Girl, wondering if it would be okay
if she offered to help, then winced when she saw the expression on the
cyborg's face. One heartless red eye flicked here and there about the
room, but the real eye was half closed with boredom, as if she'd seen
pain like this before and it didn't mean anything then either. Censor
Girl saw her watching and smiled grimly, moving her shoulders in an
elaborate shrug.
Kismet looked away.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
"Boss? Hey, boss!"
Frank Bennington wasn't listening, wasn't capable of listening.
His back arched over the floor of the base, and his limbs were twisted in
unnatural ways.
"Hey, what's up with the boss?"
"I don't know, but it looks to me as if he's been dragged to
hell..."
-=ð=- -=ð=-
The dark of the hallway faded away behind her, the greyish glow
that rose from the walls and floor turning everything soft and shining.
Inside the courtyard it was silent. Even the wind had no voice. The green
glow of her eyes went out before her, and the grey light gave it a color
she hadn't seen before, turning the ground a sickly yellow ochre.
The Demonlord sat straight and stiff on a throne of seeping meat
and skin. His skin was plaster white, and though blood dripped through
his fingers they remained pale and unstained, like oiled paper. Stag
horns thrust out from the front of his head, so long and many-pronged
that they formed a crown. He was built like a stick-man, no more than six
inches around even at the barrel of his chest. And he was huge, taller
than the LNHHQ, not even counting the horns.
Paytan met his silent gaze and took an involuntary step back, the
skin along her spine seeming to shrivel up and go ice cold. The smile
traveled from the Demonlord's face down to his mouth, face splitting in
half to reveal row upon row of glittering sharks' teeth.
"Hello Paytan," he said mildly, "I hear you've been bad."
She heard the wall close behind her, the faint whisper of the
stone pressing together once again. Trapped. Dirmarw began to curse in
the back of her mind. The Demonlord's control forced her forward a few
more steps, then down on her knees a few feet in front of the throne.
Blood soaked the legs of her jeans.
"You're opportunistic, I'll give you that, and you've certainly
used my minions for your benefit. But what do I get in return, hmmm?
Some fun maybe?" his voice was content, lazy, like a cat's.
Then suddenly, unaccountably, she was free.
Dirmarw's voice roared in her head without words, and he sent
power singing through her body. She turned, searching, but the walls
remained blank, exitless.
Paytan, attack! screamed Dirmarw, Turn and attack!
She spun back, hair whipping around her horns, and lifted the
sword. The Demonlord's expression hadn't changed, but he sat a little
straighter on the throne.
The glow of her eyes deepened, brightened, and she charged.
Dirmarw flared into her hands, a pillar of neon green fire slicing
towards the Demonlord's throne as she hurled herself towards it. He
watched her emotionlessly as she approached, as he did the flash of light
that sent her flying away from the pedestal.
"You should know better than that, girl. You couldn't beat one of
the Lesser Lords, let alone me," his voice was even, its pitch never
varying from that calm unfeeling tone.
Again! screamed the sword. I CAN BREAK HIS SHEILDS. AGAIN!
The Demonlord raised up his hands and they began to glow, a steel
grey light dancing around his fingers. The ache of the last blow still
beating through her skin, Paytan raised the sword again. Dirmarw pulled
power from somewhere, everywhere, and the neon green fire turned white,
swept around her whole body like wind and soul combined.
She threw herself forward again, running without even feeling her
feet touch the ground, intent on plunging the sword though the
Demonlord's body. The fire roared into the silence, and echoed back into
itself.
The Demonlord's hands came down fast, wreathed in dark grey
flames. Paytan swung Dirmarw up and braced herself for the blow, white
flames burning ever brighter. The two huge fists crashed into the sword,
flames racing along the blade and hilt, flaring star-bright shot through
with black, and the sword glowed red-hot, searing Paytan's hands and
sending up gouts of steam.
Then it shattered.
Paytan froze, staring at the red rivulets running down her hand
in dumb shock. She couldn't tell if the blood was Dirmarw's, or her own.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
"GET OUT OF MY WAY!!" Allen gunned the engine on the bike, and
sent them tearing off to the left. They burst out of the cloud of tiny
clawed things and roared ahead for a moment, but the swarm swung around
to follow, beginning to gain again.
Wasps the size of a grown man's fist, dragonflies with fangs and
tiny bats with spiked tails hurtled forward in a chaotic mass, a spinning
black cloud whose every member had glittering ruby eyes. Savannah felt
his muscles tense beneath her hands, and considered just letting go.
Either the fall would take care of her, or the demons would. She
shouldn't have left Brittany. How can you fight demons off with a
goldfish?
Then the swarm exploded away from them, scattering like a school
of fish when you stick your hand into the water. The castle lay thirty
feet away, and the swarm wouldn't go near it.
Allen let the bike glide to a halt about ten feet away from the
walls, then hopped off. He looked at the board of buttons and switches,
then turned to the equipment tied on the back of the bike and just left
it running.
He opened one of the bags and started unpacking it, picking two
of the best guns for himself. "We need to be ready for anything. The
Demonlord's probably got lackeys of some sort."
Savannah just stayed on the bike, silent. She heard him sigh,
pick up one last gun and walk back over to her.
"C'mon, we need to get going," he said, and patted her on the
leg. He lay the revolver on the seat next to her, nudging it gently
against her hand. Savannah's head drooped lower.
"We should never have left her," she whispered.
"Better her than Paytan," he said, and found himself nose to nose
with the gun. Savannah's metal grey eyes came into focus behind it,
terrified and angry.
"Don't say that. Never say that, or I'll have to shoot you, do
you hear me?" Her hands began to shake, and after a moment he gently
moved the gun away from his face.
"Look 'Vannah, I'm sorry. It was her choice, okay? We'll be back
to get her as soon as we get Paytan out. So let's go." Then, when she
didn't move, "Do you want to lose them both?"
She jerked, but got slowly off the bike and turned to the
seamless black wall. He stepped ahead of her, putting a hand to stone,
looking for some kind of button to press, a seam of some sort.
She pressed the gun lightly into the small of his back, felt him
freeze. "Never call me 'Vannah," she whispered. He didn't move, and after
a moment she took the gun away, and he went back to looking for some way
of getting in.
They could almost feel the energy pulsing out from the walls,
even to their untrained senses. But no entrance, not even a hint of one.
Savannah couldn't even find a crack.
"We'll have to use the plastic explosives," she said, voice still
subdued. Allen looked at her in shock.
"Where did you get your hands on plastic explosives?"
"It's easy if you know where to look." She turned her gaze on
him, and Allen winced and looked away. "It's in the left bottom
compartment on the side of the bike. The one with the guppy stickers."
Allen knew how to set the explosives up, or at least a good
enough idea to look like he knew what he was doing. Savannah let herself
become lost in thought until he came back to walk her to the bike. All
that remained was to blow the wall.
They crouched behind the bike, Allen with his back to her,
hunched over the ignition device. Savannah looked down, opening her
pocket and reaching into it to pull out a badly mauled white rose. The
edges were brown, and most of the bloom had been smashed flat. But at its
heart it was still purest white, untouched.
She heard Allen press down on the button convulsively, watched
the petals flutter in the sudden wind as light roared around her once
again. For a second there was only noise, and she was blind, and when she
could see again all was quiet and the wind had taken the rose away and
sent it to pieces across the hard, black stone.
"Savannah, c'mon. It's time to go," said Allen, and she stood up.
There was a jagged hole in the stone, big enough to accommodate someone
twice as tall as she was. But the edges of the whole pulsed, slicked
black with fluid, and she could see the wall begin to heal itself,
growing smaller by millimeters.
They stepped into the castle, dark shadows sweeping around them,
and then Allen was running ahead of her down a long dark hallway and it
was all she could do to keep up and not trip or fall. A soft grey light
grew ahead of them, washing against the floor and opposite wall.
Allen threw himself past the doorway and put his back against the
wall. Savannah took her cue from him and stopped before she got into the
grey wash of light across the floor, putting her shoulder blades to the
black stone just before the door.
Allen signaled her to wait, and she saw the sweat coat his face,
the fear that ached in his eyes. He took a deep breath.
Savannah dropped low, and peered around the door.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
She saw Paytan first, right in front of the throne. Her friend
stood frozen, staring at the drifting shards of a black metal that rained
around her. All the color was gone from her face. Her hands were clenched
so hard that rivulets of blood were dripping to the ground from between
her fingers.
"There," said the Demonlord, "That's settled at least." He
slammed his fist into her body, watching with casual interest as she hit
the wall with a muffled thump, head leaving a long bloody streak as she
slid unconscious down the wall.
Savannah felt the air move as Allen swung through the doorway,
all motion and rage, out into the courtyard, the report of a gun
shattering the silence again and again. Savannah moved her gaze to look
up at the demon, and froze.
If this was what Paytan saw every time she was summoned, this and
worse, then Savannah understood the pain and the fear. If she found
herself with horns all of a sudden, and the knowledge that a thing such
as this was coming for her, she might give up too.
She had been in hell once, when she first met Brittany, and it
had been nothing like this. And there was no Brittany now, only herself
and Allen and some guns, the bullets bouncing haywire off the demon's
flesh and falling to the stone with tiny plinks.
All it did was catch the Demonlord's attention.
Savannah saw it lean forward, tear the gun delicately from
Allen's hands and crush it, then pick up Allen and the second gun he'd
managed to get from somewhere. It closed impossibly long fingers around
his waist and began to tighten them.
Allen's face got red, mouth open and gasping for breath. The
Demonlord was crushing him. Savannah felt the weight of the revolver in
her own hand, utterly worthless. Or maybe not.
It couldn't do any damage, but Allen had distracted the Demonlord
with it last time. She brought the gun in front of her and aimed,
carefully, for the Demonlord's chest.
The gun kicked in her hand, nearly slamming back into her face,
and to her amazement the bullet bounced straight and true off the
Demonlord's chest. Exactly where she had aimed.
His head whipped around, eyes narrowing as he spotted her lying
half out of the doorway. Savannah bit her lip, and aimed again. And this
time the bullet burst dead-on through the Demonlord's pupil, the eye
exploding in a shower of white and red. It tossed Allen aside.
But it didn't look hurt, just annoyed, and before she could do
anything the hand had grabbed her by the arms, pulling her away and up
until she hung by them. He whipped her through the air toward him, and she
could feel the strain on her shoulders, especially the one that Censor
Girl had torn out of the socket with that stupid grappling hook line.
Then she hung before the Demonlord's one remaining eye, helpless.
And he was smiling.
"Oh little girl, little human," he whispered, "Did you really
think that would work?"
He let one arm slip from his grip and held her dangling by the
other, the pain intensifying. Once again she needed to be rescued, unable
to do the job by herself. Unable to do anything by herself. Savannah met
the Demonlord's gaze with a glare, focusing in on the dark pupil of his
remaining eye. It flared a little wider as she did, a circle of black
with nothing inside it.
"You're a little lamb, girl, coming to the slaughter with your
tiny guns." The Demonlord shook her a little, and she gritted her teeth.
His smile grew wider. "How do you think they'd feel, finding your poor
headless corpse lying abandoned on the stone?"
Just at the edge of her gaze Savannah could see Paytan slumped on
her side against the wall, dark brown hair turned black with blood. She
could hear Allen fighting to breathe somewhere on the ground behind her.
The demon shook her again. "Well?" he asked, and something rose
up in her eyes. Something born of being helpless and blind every waking
hour, when once she could see the whole world. Rage.
It's amazing how much you can notice when you're really looking.
When concentration is driven round intensely, with such a cold,
frustrated anger that it could discern space and time and how the two
relate. Not to mention matter.
Savannah released the control she had gained over her power, let
her focus narrow and tighten to the black pupil ringed by the light and
dark feathers of the Demonlord's iris. Then she began to push, felt all
the strength she'd worked for flow away as her concentration narrowed
again, to the sheen of the eye and the microspecks of dust spattered
across it like tiny islands.
The world faded, the power flowed, so easy when she wasn't
fighting it. To the cells, the bacteria skimming across the surface of
the eye. To the compounds of chemicals, tiny strings of dusty balls
spinning in wild splendor.
Savannah could see why people would link magic with concentration
so strongly. Magic was manipulation, the twisting of small things and
threads the human eye doesn't normally see. Spells burst from the air,
full-fledged from thoughts, and so their birthing place must be a spot
between, a tiny line between thought and actions, dream and existence.
The compounds were gone, and atoms became clouds of motion,
shuttering in and out of existence, until they were gone too, too big to
see, and all the world was dust and smoke. Air.
And within the air, thinner than a quark, so thin that it
didn't exist, the weave of power that magic worked off of. The warp and
the weft of the world. The original heart.
"I know you, now," she whispered. "I know everything."
And the Demonlord winced.
Savannah reached out, grabbed a very certain part of the
universe, and YANKED. Then watched, smiling, as the thing before her
screamed its way out of existence.
-=ð=- -=ð=-
Allen saw the crown of horns fall, spinning as if in slow motion
down to hit the ground. A dull ring reverberated through the courtyard,
growing stronger and stronger until the walls began to shake. Massive
cracks ran up the smooth stone and then all was still, the sound roaring
out and away in all directions across the dark plains.
The Demonlord was gone, just gone.
Savannah fell too, had hit limply, like a dropped doll. Allen
gently moved Paytan's head from his lap, bracing himself to stand and
stumble to the other girl. But then Paytan moaned, weakly, and his world
narrowed to her and only her.
He swept the hair back from her face, ran fingers lightly across
her cheeks. "It's alright," he soothed. "You're safe. We came for you,
Savannah, Brittany and me. The Demonlord's gone. You're safe."
The silence had been shattered, and now the wind screamed through
the courtyard again and again, his voice barely audible when the wind was
at its loudest. Paytan tried to move but failed miserably, and cracked
open her eyes. The neon green glow was pale, but there.
Allen stroked her hair, and tried to shush her, but Paytan's eyes
narrowed and the glow of them brightened. "Dead?" she whispered, voice
husky with pain and confusion.
"Yeah, he's dead," said Allen and wasn't ready for when Paytan
jerked, turning and raising herself up on one shaking elbow.
"They'll all want, Allen, coming like hordes now, get out! Home,
we have to get - "
"Paytan, I think you really hit your head, and I didn't
understand most of that - "
Paytan whimpered deep in her throat and slammed her eyes shut,
concentrating. "Go home. There is a crown. Swing the pendulum like desire
and bring in - dammit - pick it up!"
"You shouldn't be trying to talk," he began, but she tensed up,
looked into his eyes, and he saw the panic that sweeping through her.
"I'll get it. Don't worry, I'll be back." Allen stood, stumbled toward
the crown. He reached Savannah first.
She lay limply against the ground in an uncomfortable looking
sprawl. Allen turned her over carefully, pulled down the arm that was
thrown above her head. She was barely breathing, deep slow breaths easing
in and out of her lungs. He couldn't find her pulse, but he was pretty
sure it was in there somewhere, maybe too faint for him to sense.
The crown lay just beyond. He picked Savannah up in his arms and
took a few more steps, knelt down to pick up the tangle of points and
bone. He almost put it on his head, for lack of a better way to carry it,
but then thought better of it and shifted Savannah so she lay over his
shoulder, holding the crown in his other hand.
He laid her down next to Paytan, who reached out a shaking hand
to grab Savannah's and clench it tightly. He watched as she realized how
cold the skin and began to search for a pulse. Her fingers left a left a
wide swath of read across Savannah's wrist. Allen gently took her hand
and held it in his own.
"She's alive, barely. I checked. Whatever she did knocked her out
pretty bad, I guess. I've got the crown, Paytan. What do I do with it?"
He watched as she concentrated, trying to remember something
through what must have been a jumble of pain and confusion. "You have to
turn time down, bring in what was make it twist," she whispered.
"I think you're going to have to be clearer about that," said
Allen. She nodded weakly, a drop of blood running down into one of her
eyes. She led her lids drop closed and took in a deep, shaking breath.
"Repeat me. Open the gates and bring us home, open the gates and
take all that we care for through them, open the gates so that we return
whole and complete. Say that. Wait! Brittany - "
"I'm here," said a tired voice, and Allen didn't question, just
held onto the crown, let the words fall from his mouth like drops of
thunder and tear open the way between worlds.
There was a glowing fall, a susurrus of tingling running over his
flesh like nothing else in the world. The crown was gone from his hands,
there was no feeling and he could see nothing, everything, nothing, like
a bad piece of stuttering film, then everything was green, green, green
and a song that smelled of heaven and the breath of angels tore in and
cut his mind in two.
Then it stopped, one breath of air, the smell of home.
And blessed unconsciousness.
________________________________________________________________________
Binky, Dirmarw, Kismet, Mr.Fossavellus, the Junior Brotherhood of
Net.Villains, Out-of-It Lass, Perdition, Weirdness Girl, copyright
Jennifer Whitson, 1995. Censor Girl is Public Domain. Allen is
Jamas Enright's. The Demonlord is dead as doornails, so does it
really matter?
Next Issue:
The gang's back from hell, but that doesn't mean the trouble's
over. What will Paytan do without Dirmarw?
At what, by the way, is up with Censor Girl?
========================================================================
