Authors: Wayne Batson
Chapter 45
I didn’t drown.
But I’m not altogether sure what happened as I sank deeper into the Gulf of Mexico. My best guess is that my body completely reset while I was unconscious. Rejuvenated and unmasked, I must have flown…somewhere. When I awoke, I thought I might be in a jungle, on a new mission.
But I wasn’t. I still had all my memories of Smiling Jack. And the jungle was actually a landscaped thicket of bushes near Great Progress Clinic for Women. And it was night, early night. The sun had all but disappeared in angry red smear at the horizon.
I wasn’t sure how that could be unless I’d been unconscious for close to a whole day. Maybe I had been. The kind of washed out I was, it would take that long for a complete resetting. All I knew for certain was that I had reset, unmasked, and flown here to the clinic. I flexed the muscle in my arm, shrugged the cables of muscle in my neck, and flared my back. Best resetting I’d had in years. I felt brand new. I felt strong.
The Edge!
I had dropped it on the ship’s deck before diving over the rail. But, when I patted my tuxedo pants pocket, I found the weapon there. I blinked, trying to remember flying to the coast, searching for Smiling Jack’s Oyster 625, and then taking back my weapon. But there was nothing there to remember. Just a gaping gray sea. Still…having my go-to weapon back was a big plus.
But unfortunately I was going to be ended anyway.
Forneus the Felriven waited for me inside the clinic. He had my silver case. I needed it for Memory Washing and…well, just because it was
my
silver case. My tools were in there. I needed my tools.
So, feeling surly and grim, I emerged from the bushes and strode towards the clinic. I switched over to Netherview immediately, and the spiderish building became a fenced-in stronghold teeming with Shades.
I ducked under the gnarled limb of a leafless ethereal tree and kicked the iron gate in. It swung open and slammed against the other side of the fence with a resounding clatter. The Shades looked up. They saw me. I didn’t care.
With my fists balled and hanging at my sides like leaden hammers, I strode up to the Shades and glared at them. They slithered and clambered around their buttress perch. They scowled and sneered and even spat. But they didn’t attack.
A roamer had the nerve to leap into the walk in front of me. It danced around and wagged its elongated head at me. I hit it so hard in the face that its neck broke. Its head swung back like a sack of coins in a sock, and it collapsed at my feet. I stepped over it without looking down.
The misshapen gatehouse waited for me, and I ducked under its cruel portcullis. I found the formidable iron door open as before. And as before, it slammed shut behind me…and locked.
I felt the supernatural chill in the air and strode forward. My breath must have been hot because I exhaled great, roiling clouds with each step. The Shades that lined both sides of the long, narrow hall made no move to interfere, but they leered at me as I passed.
“Sintryst welcomes back, the Horseman!” a deep voice boomed. Hisses of approval from the myriad Shades whirled around me. I cringed inwardly. Forneus had called me Horseman. He no longer believed me to be a Guardian. He knew me. Any hope of Forneus simply handing me my case and allowing me to leave vanished like the whorls of my breath in the cold air. I shrugged off the chill and went forward.
“I delivered the message to Anthriel!” I called out. More hisses answered. “He wouldn’t read it in my presence.”
“Pity,” Forneus’ low voice rumbled out. “He might have saved me the trouble of ending you myself.”
“Look,” I said, continuing on. “I did what you said. I know Anthriel did read the message. I just came back for my case.”
“It…is…here.”
I came to the throne room and found its twin staircases lined with a virtual army of Shades and its mighty seat occupied by something worse. My resolve melted a little when I saw him.
Forneus the Felriven.
Muscle. Armor. Fur. Hooves. Wings. His mere appearance was enough to knock the wind from my lungs, but I masked it well enough and summoned enough gall to scowl.
“I must admit,” Forneus said, standing and flexing his vast wings, “I really did not believe you would return. It is courage, Horseman…or bravado. I respect both. Come, your silver case awaits.” He turned, and the black sword swayed at his side like a pendulum. He gestured with his thick arm, and there, at the foot of his throne, was my silver case.
I learned long ago: if someone offers you a gift, you accept it. I stepped forward, following a direct path to the case. I was under Forneus’ shadow when his massive hand blocked my way.
“Lo, Horseman,” Forneus said, “are you so eager to depart? You who wrought such carnage here in my domain? You who led me to believe you were a harmless Guardian? Your deceit alone is worthy of my wrath.”
Shame on me. I’d also learned long ago: there’s no such thing as a free lunch. I tried to keep my swallowing from being obvious. But, fire and blood, his hand was huge, the palm alone covering my entire chest.
Forneus loosed his Soulcleaver and held it horizontally for me to inspect the blade. “This is a sabeline sword,” he said, as if I didn’t know. “It is a volatile substance, Horseman. It has longings. Do you know what it wishes of thee?”
I had several guesses, all quite unsavory. I kept my mouth shut.
“It wishes to drink thee, to consume thee…to end thee. Goodbye, Horseman.”
In his yellowed eyes, I saw a hint of regret…as if he might have wished me some other fate. But unfortunately, the rest of his countenance communicated deep-seated malice. He lifted the blade back behind him. No ceremony. No preface. He was just going to cut me down.
The Soulcleaver rang in the air as it came, but I wasn’t standing still. I wasn’t going to sit there like a block of wood or some sad sack waiting for execution. If I was going out, I was going out fighting.
My Edge buzzed to life, and I blocked Forneus’ stroke. You couldn’t actually call it a block. It was more of an anguished deflection. The Edge bounced away from Forneus’ blow, and the recoil almost struck my neck. I stopped it just in time, spun, and lashed out low. That was the way to attack a much taller foe: cut out its foundation.
The Edge struck the top of Forneus’ right hoof and bounced. But it bounced upward and carved a divot into the shaggy fur of Forneus’ shin. There was a spray of hissing black steam, and Forneus roared.
When I say, he roared, you need to understand that an adult lion would shrivel up and die if it heard the sound Forneus made. It felt as if the entire throne room shook. I fell over on my side and clutched my ears. My heart raced so hard, I feared it would rupture.
Forneus kicked me.
The stunning blow made my ears ring and catapulted me across the throne room. I crashed into something hard and lost consciousness for a moment. I came to in the midst of Forneus’ thunderous rage. He stood something on the order of sixty yards away. His kick had launched me that far.
“…dared to strike me?” Forneus yelled as he lashed out with his Soulcleaver and took out a column of stone as if it was made of papier-mâché.
I’m really—really—glad that Forneus hadn’t used that stroke against me.
Suddenly, I found myself speaking. “Oh, get over yourself!” I choked out the words, tasting blood. “You’re just a Knightshade! Sure, you might be an ancient Knightshade with an infamous reputation and legendary conquests, but you’re still just a Knightshade!”
Forneus’ head fell back and the hall filled with his suffocating laughter. “Oh, Horseman,” he said, each word weighted with heavy rolls of his mirth, “you are defiant till the end! You should have been one of the Fallen!”
“Nah,” I said. “The Most High has a better retirement plan.”
That might not have been the best thing to say. Like the flick of a switch, Forneus’ laughter ceased. “You spratling!” he hissed, using a curse I’d heard only once before. The Guardian who’d spoken it before had been cast out…forever.
“You speak of what you do not know!” Forneus growled. He stepped forward, each deliberate step vibrating the floor. He was coming to finish me.
“Speaking of what I do not know,” I said, beyond caring at this point. “What was in that message you had me deliver to Anthriel?”
Forneus stopped his approach just twenty yards from me. “It was not for your eyes, little one,” he said. “It was meant for your betters.”
“Okay, I get that,” I said. “But since you’re about to ruin me, you could at least give me a hint.”
“Very well then,” Forneus said. “A dying wish. Know this, Horseman, with that scroll…I have started a war.”
“So? The Euangelion and the Fallen have been at war for ten thousand ages.”
“Not a war between our kinds,” Forneus said, and he stepped forward. “You may take that knowledge to Oblivion!”
I rose to one knee, and found that The Edge was still in my hand. I wouldn’t cower. I wouldn’t close my eyes. I held the blade defiantly…and shivered.
If the room had been cold before, it dropped suddenly to sub Arctic now. Just then the Edge started to buzz in my hands. It rattled with such a tremor that the hand holding it felt numb.
Of all the times for the Edge to act up
—No! I suddenly knew the sensation for what it was. The ground, still shuddering with each of Forneus’ thunderous footfalls, began to surge and pulse with electricity. Tiny spiders of voltage clambered up the flesh of my knee and thigh.
The air between Forneus and me seemed to melt, and a black wound formed. The wound bled tendrils of night, and the Nephilim formed from the pooling darkness. Continuing to coalesce into that livid silvery-blue flesh, the Nephilim stood tall, blocking Forneus from my view.
“You…keep running…from me,” it said, in that voice of ten-thousand murders.
“Out of my way, smoke thing!” Forneus thundered. And suddenly, his massive hand thrust the Nephilim to the side. But the Nephilim’s movement wasn’t a fall so much as a reconstitution of its form. The flesh melted into black vapor and reformed. Its disease-ridden yellow eyes leered back at Forneus.
“Felriven…” the Nephilim whispered. “I…have heard…of thee.”
“Stand aside,” Forneus said. “My quarrel is not with you.”
“Oh…yes. Yes…it is.” Smoke curled around the Nephilim’s limbs. And when it spoke again, I thought I saw flames. “The Horseman…is my…quarry.”
Forneus drove his Soulcleaver at the Nephilim, carving a scathing stroke through its midsection.
If the Nephilim felt the blow, it made no cry. There was an instantaneous splattering of dark gore where the blade had swept through, but then, the Nephilim was whole again. It lifted both arms and its hands became twin vortices of oily black mist. They drove into Forneus’ chest and began to churn. Shreds of armor, fur, and flesh began to fly, and Forneus unleashed such a cacophony of agony that I swooned.
“Run…away now…Horseman,” the Nephilim said. And, even as it continued to rip at Forneus, it turned its head and gazed at me. “I…will come…find thee…later.”
That was all I needed to hear. I leapt up on wobbly legs, made a wide berth around Forneus and ran for the throne. I had to duck and dodge dozens of Shades who’d only just begun to fly to the aid of their master. If my earlier count had been close, there must have been near a legion of Shades in and around Sintryst. I hoped they smothered the Nephilim, and I hoped they ended each other.
I grabbed up my silver case and ran. No, I sprinted. Actually, I drove my legs so hard that both hamstrings popped. I practically fell through the gatehouse door. I hit the turf at a crawl. But then, I flew.
Chapter 46
I found the assassin’s car at the mall in Pensacola and drove it on fumes back to the Four Seasons Marina. I spent the better part of the afternoon visiting with the Adderlys. We had us a good conversation.
I found out from Paul Adderly that the chaos the other night had been caused by a La Compañía gunboat that had been sent to hit
The Sirocco
. When the Coast Guard showed up, the mafia gunboat opened fire. Fortunately, the U.S. Coast Guard is not to be trifled with. They sent the gunboat to the bottom of the Gulf and, together with the FBI, rounded up the floaters who survived.
Adderly couldn’t tell me anything about the two young women, Smiling Jack’s final intended victims. But, he did say that I was deemed “lost at sea.” They thought I had drowned.
So much the better.
I answered a few questions for the Adderlys before I left. They were good questions. The answers were even better.
I ran out of gas on the way to Panama City Hospital Center. I walked the rest of the way.
* * *
* * *
* * *
* * *
Doctor Shepherd shook my hand and led me to his office. We sat. He twirled his mustache a bit. Then he held up a finger. “Ah, just a minute,” he said. “I have to make a quick call.”
He picked up the hospital phone and dialed exactly eleven numbers. An outside line. An area code. A phone number.
“This is Doc Shepherd over at PCBHC,” he said. “Right. Looks like I’ve got a slot available for you for the procedure you requested. Uh, huh. Right. I’ll see you then.” He hung up.
“Now then, Agent Spector,” he said. “Where were we?”
“Remember, I’m not an agent,” I said. “Not really.”
“Right, right. Old habits die hard.” He laughed self consciously. “So, where were we, Mr. Spector?”
“I was saying goodbye.”
“You were?” he said. “Work all finished here?”
I nodded. “I was wondering if you had a card, something with your contact information? And I was wondering if I might be able to call you in the future if I have…issues…on other cases.”