Beyond the Pale (15 page)
Oscuro gave a diabolical grin, then he counter-attacked with his own magic.
A spirit formed in the air above Oscuro then. It was huge, perhaps the manifestation of the Blood Mage Gestalt entity on this metaplane, and it took the form of a dragon—a feathered serpent like Quetzalcoatl, except this one was much smaller. The dragon’s feathers glimmered blue and yellow, but Lucero noticed that patches of it were blank. Almost transparent.
Inside those patches, something seemed to be moving, like a million tiny snakes writhing in agony. The sight made Lucero shudder.
Lightning flashed from the painted elf to the dragon spirit, but it did not slow the dragon’s descent. The spirit crashed down on the elf mage, slamming him to the ground behind the surrounding zombies.
The human with the glowing aura cried out and started to move to help his fallen companion. His path was blocked by Oscuro’s minions.
The dragon spirit crashed down again. And again. Gouging flesh from the elf.
Oscuro advanced on the elf, wielding his obsidian knife, looking down over his prone body as the dragon spirit descended again. “I will defeat you finally,” said Oscuro.
The mage focused all his power and released it against the feathered serpent. Like a sun flare, the dragon burst into flames and dissipated.
Zombies piled on the elf’s arms and legs, pinning him down.
Oscuro smiled and brought the knife down over the elf’s chest.
Lucero felt something then—a tug on her aura.
Oscuro stopped, looking at Lucero in surprise. A questioning expression crossed his features. “What?” he said,
then glanced around rapidly, searching for something.
“No,”
he said. “Not now.” He brought the knife up again, and stabbed down, its tip aimed at the elf’s heart.
As the knife slid between the elf’s ribs, Lucero and her master watched as the world around them dissipated.
Oscuro screamed, “No!”
The cracked plane of rock and blood-tinged sky swirled into a vortex around them. Oscuro’s anger slammed into Lucero like a palpable blow to her head as they flew back into the physical world. As she plowed into her meat body.
Crying, naked, bathed in blood.
Hands of acolytes helped her to sit up.
“What is the meaning of this?” Oscuro yelled at the startled faces of the mages around him. “Why were we brought out? Why was the ritual stopped?”
In answer, Lucero heard the rattle of an automatic weapon. She looked around. Mages and technicians huddled behind the Jaguar Guards, who formed a tight, protective perimeter around the Locus and everyone on it. The guards had drawn their guns and cannons, searching for the source of the bullets.
“There!” yelled one of the guards, pointing toward a space in the crowd.
At first Lucero saw nothing, but after a second, she caught sight of something, almost invisible as it approached in quick bursts. The creature’s aura and his physical being flickered under some masking power, but once she pinpointed him, she got a clear look.
He seemed human, though his proportions were immense. Cyberspurs retracted into his forearm as he rushed toward her, a machine gun in his other hand. He moved faster than should be possible for his size, and there was something inhuman about him—his body too symmetrical, his limbs too long, his bald skull too uniform.
A cyberzombie? Lucero had seen one or two before. They were sometimes used to defend members of the Gestalt.
What is this one doing?
she wondered. They rarely acted on their own.
The cyberzombie’s aura was a confusion, but she could read his intent clearly. He wanted to destroy the Locus and those around it. Including her.
Lucero heard a deep
thunk,
then an explosion shook the air, throwing three guards to the ground. Pandemonium ensued as the Jaguar Guards returned fire. Lucero’s ears rang, and she breathed shallowly in the acrid air.
Lucero coiled into a fetal position, knowing that death was near. It circled her like a descending vulture.
She rocked herself slowly, holding her hands over her destroyed ears, and waited.
Perhaps I’m already dead
, she thought.
Perhaps I’ve slipped beyond the pale, and this is Hell.
Pain sliced into Ryan’s shoulder as one of the spider creatures bit into it. The monster’s jagged mandibles penetrated his armor, and Ryan felt the poison start to paralyze him. Winnowing down his arm with a numbing cold.
“Frag you!” he yelled, spinning toward it. Burying his fist into the largest of its eyes. He penetrated the gooey black ichor and punched through to its brain. He grabbed a handful of dripping soft nervous tissue and yanked it out.
The creature released its bite on Ryan’s shoulder and slumped into a quivering heap. Only to be replaced by another of the same kind, fighting to climb over its fallen kin in order to devour Ryan.
Ryan turned to his other side, using his distance strike, amplified by the power of the Dragon Heart to plow back the phalanx of zombies closing in.
I must get to Harlequin.
The elf had fallen under that magical dragon’s pounce, and even though he had destroyed it, Ryan knew he was in trouble.
As Ryan turned, time seemed to thicken, like each moment was longer than the next. Each heartbeat spaced a fraction further from its predecessor.
Moments ago, Ryan had seen the dead black of the obsidian knife in Darke’s hand. He had seen the arc it had
traveled as it fell. He’d watched helplessly as the razor-honed tip of the sacrificial weapon penetrated Harlequin’s jacket and shirt, stabbing down into his chest like a jagged hypodermic needle.
Harlequin’s back had arched in pain, and he’d cried out in agony as his blood gushed out in a geyser. The elf had started a spell—a powerful volley of magical force-aimed at Darke. But at that exact instant the human had looked up in surprise, abruptly yelling, “No!”
Darke vanished as Harlequin’s spell hit.
Now, Ryan yelled, “Harlequin!”
“I live, my friend,” came the response. “But that may not be true for long. He has wounded me deeply.”
Zombies closed in on Harlequin, though without Darke to direct them, they seemed less effective. Still, the creatures bore their claws and teeth.
“I’m coming to help,” Ryan said, struggling to move through the masses around him.
Hands and tentacles groped for a hold, snagging Ryan’s legs and arms. Spilling gore and foul-smelling pus over him as he tried to push through to Harlequin.
“No,” said Harlequin. “You must go back, Ryan. You heard Thayla. You must find the spirit called Lethe and bring him here.”
Ryan ran into a wall of zombies. “What about you?”
“I will try, but I am weak. If I don’t make it back, you must contact Aina. She knows the ancient magic and can bring you and the Heart across again.”
Ryan tried to move through the zombies, but they blocked his way. Groping with their razor nails to gouge out his eyes. “But—”
“Go!” Harlequin gestured with his arm, and Ryan found himself flying. The world swirled around him, a mass of gray and red and rainbow sky. Cracked earth and darkness.
Then it was all gone, and Ryan crashed back into his body.
Bullets ricocheted off Billy’s metal body as Lethe tried to keep them hidden using his masking ability. It became more and more difficult as the guards around the Locus used flash grenades and magic to alter the light conditions.
“They’re also using radar,” Billy said, diving into a rolling dodge behind a large rock covered with dried river plants. “Our grenades are gone, and we’re nearly out of bullets. We’re not going to make it. Even I can’t take all of them hand to hand.”
“Maybe there’s a way.”
“And that would be?”
“Magic,” Lethe said. “Casting spells.”
“I can’t do that anymore, remember?”
“I know you lost all your power when you became Burnout, but I can manipulate astral energies.” Lethe waited for his message to sink in. “But you were a mage once. You still remember the formulae for spells, don’t you?”
“I think so, but—”
“What can it hurt to try?”
Billy was shaking his head, firing a quick burst at a group of guards advancing on their position. The gun stopped firing abruptly, and Billy shook it before ducking back behind the boulder. “Frag,” he said. “Okay, let’s do it. What’ve we got to lose now?”
“I’ll channel the mana through you.”
Billy nodded, and Lethe could feel him searching his memory. “All right. Let’s keep it simple. Hellblast.”
Lethe drew power to him and paid careful attention as Billy reached for it like a groping blind man. He floundered for a second, then seemed to feel it. Lethe showed him astral space, watched as Billy targeted the aura of one of the advancing guards.
The spell coalesced and discharged. The guard exploded in a massive bail of flame that flattened those around him.
“It worked!” Lethe said.
Billy’s response came slowly, a labored whisper. “Too strong,” he whispered. The magic had drained him, weakened him. Lethe waited helplessly as Billy sank into unconsciousness.
More guards were coming, approaching slowly, wary of magic and any other surprises that Billy might have. Lethe contemplated trying to cast another hellblast spell himself. He could probably accomplish it now that he’d participated in one. How the mana was gathered, focused and released inside the aura of another as fire. But Lethe didn’t know how that would effect Billy.
Might even kill him..
He decided to run instead. With Billy passed out, Lethe had a measure of control over the body, but it was jerky and awkward. He stood and tried to run.
Guards swarmed around him, their weapons ready to kill. “Hold your fire,” came the order over a bullhorn from the bank of the dried lake.
Lethe looked over as he moved awkwardly toward the water. If he could get into what was left of the lake, perhaps he could swim over the dam and down river, staying under by using his air tank. Perhaps escape was possible after all.
The man who spoke was a dwarf wearing a white technician smock. He slung the bullhorn over his shoulder and leveled a remote signaling device toward Lethe and Billy.
Lethe’s legs seized up and he fell. His arms froze in place, clicking off as though they didn’t exist. Lethe watched helplessly as he hit the ground and scraped to a stop in loose gravel. Billy’s systems shut down one by one. His eyes, ears. All sensory input erased.
Lethe shifted to his normal perception, watching everything from the astral as guards surrounded him. Their auras indicated a mixture of fear, duty, and anger at the death of their comrades.
What will they do now?
Lethe wondered.
“Step aside,” came a man’s voice.
“
Sí,
Señor.”
The guards parted to let him through, a human with black hair and a beard. The man wore a tan robe soaked in blood. Around his neck hung an ornate ceremonial collar made of brilliantly colored enamel feathers, rimmed with gold. His aura flickered with blank patches, sections that writhed like a million slithering, transparent worms. Lethe had seen this before; it was like parts of his aura were missing or connected to somewhere else.
A tall elf accompanied the man, an elf Lethe recognized as the mage from the cybertechnology clinic in Panama. “This is your fault, Meyer.”
“Believe me, Darke,” Meyer said. “I gave strict instructions for Burnout to be kept bound and under heavy guard. We’ve never seen this sort of behavior from a cyberzombie before.”
Darke narrowed his eyes on Lethe, looking into the astral with a level of scrutiny that Lethe had rarely seen. Darke’s perception stared directly at Lethe, recognizing his presence inside Billy’s body. “I see you, spirit,” he said. “I see you, and I will destroy you.”
Magic gathered to Darke’s aura, a phenomenal reservoir of mana building in the seconds before Lethe realized what was about to happen. Lethe reached out to the Locus for strength as Darke’s power smashed into him.
“
¡Adios!"
Darke yelled. “You are banished!”
Scalpels of magical energy sliced into Lethe, cutting him up, dissecting his very soul as it tried to force him from this world. Light and color spun around him, descending into gray, into black pinpricked with white stars.
Lethe felt his essence disintegrate from the onslaught, the fabric of his existence shred and unravel as he groped to hold his life force together. A mushroom cloud of fire seemed to erupt around him, shrapnel flying out from the explosion. Trees bursting into flames. A recurring nightmare of shattering glass and burning sacrifices.
He screamed, and a rift opened between the physical and the astral. A rainbow portal across the metaplanes as the explosion stripped him of his essence, his life energy.
Lethe’s mind touched the Locus then, and he drank power from it like a parched man from a mountain spring. The nightmare dissipated and darkness descended, but Lethe channeled mana through the stone and into the pattern of his being. The astral explosion diffused. Vanished into memory.