Authors: Tim Marquitz
A fist flashed in my blurred vision and I
wobbled against the dull thump of its impact, but there was no telling where
I’d been hit. I raised my arms to ward off any others, but a sharp voice,
screeching nails dragged across a chalkboard, cut through the haze.
“Hold him a moment!” I recognized Gorath’s
voice as it split the distance between us, the underlying satisfaction coating
the command. He’d won.
The last of my resistance crumbled, and I
looked at him with my one good eye, only to realize he wasn’t done with us yet.
He hovered over Longinus, who hung savaged in the alien’s grip. The ex-AC’s
head lolled on his neck, fingers clasped weakly about Gorath’s wrist, but there
was barely any resistance left in him. The dagger glowed in the alien’s hand as
he held it above Longinus, taunting him with it as he held back on delivering
the merciful, final blow.
“Today is a glorious day,” he shouted,
enjoying the moment. “Soon we will return this planet to you, the rightful
people of Feluris, and chase the invaders from this world.”
The Felurians cheered, raising their
weapons into the air. They were all smiles; fucking idiots. The one at my back
kept his spear in me. I could feel the shaft wiggling with his spastic
celebrations, its motion setting the other to dance.
“You…are…nothing.” Longinus’ voice, as
quiet as it was, cut through the noise and drew every eye to him, silence
settling over.
“Am I, now?” Gorath grinned, playing to the
crowd. “Then tell me, demon, why is it you who bleeds upon his knees if you are
my superior?”
Low chuckles erupted throughout the ranks
of the Felurians. They were enjoying this moment as much as Gorath was. Longinus
gathered the last of his strength and rose up so that he held his torso up
under his own power, but it was clear he had nothing more to offer. It only
made Gorath laugh.
“You came like sheep to the slaughter, led
docilely by your pathetic love for your child.” Longinus snarled at the
comment, but could do nothing more. “She will be so disappointed to learn how
foolish you were, how easily you met your end.”
Longinus spit at Gorath, but the bloody
phlegm only dribbled down his chin, to fall without impact upon the ground
below. Another roar of laughter erupted.
And something thumped against my knee.
My gaze fell away from Longinus to spy Rala
awake. She raised her eyebrows, motioning with her eyes toward the ground in
front of me. I looked down and felt my heart thump a panicked beat against my
ribs. There in front of me was one of my guns.
“Time to die, invader!” Gorath shouted, playing
the role and inciting his minions to shout along. He raised the dagger over his
head.
My fingers clasped the pistol grip and
sucked it into my palm. The .45 settled with trembling uncertainty.
Longinus growled as Gorath loomed, his head
turning to look at me. “Save her,” he said. His eyes met mine, and I could see
the desperation swirling in their sorrowed depths. He knew this was the end;
we’d come all this way to die.
I nodded at his last words, hoping he might
find some comfort in the gesture I wasn’t able to offer. The dagger swooped
down and Longinus closed his eyes. I raised my pistol and fired.
Twenty-Two
The bullet got there first.
Longinus’ head snapped to the side, and I
thought I saw a smile crease his lips as the shot exploded from the back of his
skull. His eyes rolled back just before the dagger sunk into his chest.
Gorath stared wide-eyed at the ruin of
Longinus’ head as gray and red pieces spilled down his neck and toppled to the
ground with wet
plops
. The lifeless
body slipped from the dagger, the only thing holding it up, and slumped
alongside the wreckage of its brains.
I let the gun slip from my fingers as the
aliens tightened their hold on me, the spears pressing deeper into my flesh.
Gorath spun to glare at me, cold fury chiseling lines in his mottled face. Of
all the endings to this moment he’d probably imagined, this couldn’t possibly
be one of them. I forced a grin, not wanting to think of what I’d done. It
hadn’t been what I wanted, not even remotely, but Gorath had forced my hand. In
taking away all of my choices, he’d given me one he hadn’t foreseen. He started
toward me, frothy spittle flying from his mouth as he screamed obscenities that
even the translator couldn’t identify.
And that’s when the soul transfer hit.
~
In the beginning, there was darkness. And
then there was light…and a strange, tickling sensation that was really fucking
annoying.
I opened my eyes to see Gorath standing
over me, slamming the golden dagger into my chest, over and over. Frenzied fire
backlit his eyes as he attacked, but it dimmed the moment he saw me staring up
at him. I’m sure the smile didn’t help. His hands froze, clutching the blade in
front of him as if he’d forgotten it was there. He gasped and stumbled back.
The dregs of the soul transfer still washed
over me, pure bliss and a blowjob to boot. My skin rippled as the wounds Gorath
had inflicted closed, the edges pulling together and sealing as though they’d
never been. Remnant blood clung to the ruin of my shirt as I sat up. The rest
of the aliens fled to his side at seeing me heal, their morale in the shitter
after seeing their savior backpedaling.
“Get behind me,” I told Rala.
She dragged herself to her knees and
crawled over to me before dropping to the ground at my back. I smiled at her
and looked back to Gorath.
“It seems the shoe’s on the other foot,
now,” I told him, giving the sentence a good dose of country so it twanged.
“Now it’s about to be up your ass.”
I charged forward and slapped the dagger
from his hand. It
thunked
into the dirt before he’d even realized he’d lost it. A smile split my cheeks
wide. So used to being at the low end of the scale, it was exhilarating to feel
the magic that screamed through my veins. Not even when I’d swallowed two vials
of Lucifer’s blood had I felt so powerful. That had been amazing, but there’d
been an instability to it that I didn’t feel now.
The vials were a supplement, a steroid used
to increase my limitations temporarily. My body fought against as though it were
a disease, a virus. It could only handle so much, but this…this was different.
There was none of the rejection, none of the backlash. This was pure evolution.
Longinus’s energy wasn’t strapped onto my ass with duct tape, it was a part of
me; an upgrade that had merged seamlessly at the genetic level, ramped to its
full potential. I’d become what Daddy had always wanted: the Anti-Christ.
And it only cost the life of Karra’s
father.
All the good feelings I had withered on the
vine. The smile fell away. I grabbed Gorath and lifted him over my head,
slamming him to the ground at my back. He hit with a bone-snapping thud, an
agonized groan spilling from his mouth.
Satisfied that he’d stay there long enough
for me to finish what I needed to, I turned my attention to the Felurians who
stood frozen in place, arms and weapons limp at their sides. While I tried to
convince myself they were just soldiers doing what they were told, fighting for
the side that offered them the best chance at life, I couldn’t find any
sympathy in my heart. I don’t know if that was Longinus’ influence or my own,
but where there once might have been a shred of pity for the aliens and their
position, there was nothing but the ashes of forgiveness for the decision
they’d helped force upon me.
Before any of them could bolt, I summoned
the magic—
my
magic—and raised my arms
out before me. Serpents of energy erupted from my fingertips and flew across
the intervening space, sharpened points spearing each of the surviving
Felurians. They screamed and struggled, but the mystical cords had sunk deep. A
flutter of will raised the aliens into the air. They grasped at the snakes of
my power, fighting to pull them free as their feet drifted above the ground:
five feet, ten feet, until they hung more than twenty feet above.
I fought back the urge to monologue, to
tell them what they’d cost me, what they’d made me do, but none of that
mattered now; certainly not to them. They were just pawns in all of this,
victims in the games of gods. But that didn’t matter either. Not to me. I sent
a command along the length of the tendrils and the magic responded like a happy
dog, eager to do my bidding. The first of the Felurians to feel its effect
grunted and looked to his side. A sharp point of energy had burst through the
flesh. Blood dripped from its length as it continued to grow outward. Then
there was another and another as spears of magic pierced his body from the
inside.
Terrified eyes went wide as the rest of the
aliens saw what was happening to their companion. I silenced the first one to
beg with a mystical branch bursting from his mouth to pin his tongue inside.
The air filled with screams as my wicked thorns blossomed.
Rala gasped and turned away, but like my
compassion, my guilt had taken a vacation. The thorns burst from every inch of
space on the aliens’ bodies, slowly, inexorably punching holes one after
another, each point finding a fresh piece of meat to spear and savage. When the
shrieks died away, there was nothing left but shreds of the Felurians, wiggling
on the ends of the tendrils, their blood raining down on the torn remnants
below. I released my magic and the last of the bits fell, splashing to earth.
It was Gorath’s turn.
I turned to him and saw by the flushed
whiteness of his face that he had watched what I’d done to his minions. He knew
what was coming next.
“Please, I—”
“Don’t beg,” I replied. “It will only drag
this out.”
He swallowed hard, his throat bobbling at
the effort. His eyes bounced about in desperation, looking for a place to
escape, but I wouldn’t be giving them the opportunity. My hands snapped to his
face, thumbs sinking into the soft spaces of his eye sockets. He shrieked as
they slid to the first knuckle, and then the second, a final twist of my wrist
driving them in until they would go no more. His skull creaked under the
pressure, tiny popping sounds signifying it was giving way as he thrashed in my
hands. Then he was still.
I pulled my thumbs free and wiped them
clean on Gorath’s tunic, before stepping around to the other side of Rala where
I could speak to her without bringing her attention to the carnage I’d wrought just
a few feet away.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded, barely managing a glance in my
direction.
“I’m sorry for all this,” I said, motioning
to the field, “but I promise I won’t hurt you.”
Rala said nothing. She sat there,
struggling to get her breath under control, her naked chest
pistoning
.
It made the wound at her side seep.
“You need help. Will you let me take you
home?” I held my hand out to her.
She stared at it, and then at her side.
Blood spilled down her hip and over her thigh. Rala sighed and turned her eyes
to me. She nodded and reached out. I took her hand and gently lifted her to her
feet, wrapping my arm about her so I could put pressure on her wound.
I wanted to heal her, but I was afraid I’d
only do more damage. Magic was a blunt instrument. While I knew well enough how
to break things, that instinct more than natural—inherited, I’d say—I didn’t
want to try something I’d no understanding of. I didn’t know if I was capable
of it.
Longinus might well have had some ability
to heal, the energy and focus needed well within his realm of experience, I
wasn’t even sure I’d gathered all of his powers. Gorath had stolen quite a bit
before I’d taken the rest, and the alien had even grabbed a little more after
I’d gotten it. The soul transfer leveled me up to the point Longinus would be
at had he not been exhausted and injured, but I truly doubted I’d been the
recipient of all of his magic.
That was something I could ponder later. I
needed to get Rala somewhere safe. Her in my arms, I went over and collected Longinus
sword and sheath, slipping it around my waist. Then I grabbed the golden dagger
and slid it into the belt. How the thing worked was beyond me, but I sure
wasn’t gonna leave it behind for someone else to snatch up and put to use.
As I looked to get my bearings, a flash of
movement caught my eye. I spun about, ready to cast but let my energy slip
away. Jesus lay on the ground, a bloody hand stretched in my direction. A gooey
stain stood out his back: the knife wound. It was just low enough to have
missed Christ’s heart by only an inch or two, most likely having gone into a
lung. Jesus looked like hell, but he’d survived. I wasn’t sure he would
continue to do so for long.
My gaze drifted to Rala’s, and I sighed at
seeing the slight downward curve to her bottom lip. “Damn it, girl, you’re
ruining my street cred.” I went over and scooped Christ up with a huff,
adjusting Rala so I could carry them both without causing them too much
discomfort. It looked like our roles had been reversed, but I didn’t like it.
There was no fun in the savior business.
“Thank you,” Jesus whispered, the words
barely toppling from his tongue.
“Don’t thank me yet,” I answered. He stared
at me, most likely regretting his decision to go with me. “I’ve a few errands
to run before I take you home. Hope you don’t mind.”
Honestly, I didn’t care if he did.
Karra and my baby were still out there, and
they were my priority. Besides, it couldn’t hurt to have a god in my pocket.