Chapter Eighty-Seven: Slapshot
Morning came without any more battalions of demons showing up, or indeed any demons being visible at all. The sun beamed down, the sky was completely clear... and looking down on the streets, it should've been filled with people going about their business.
At certain times of the night, it wasn't unusual to find no one in the street in any Earth city, but in the morning? We have something called rush hour for a reason, and Troy inherited it thanks to the timekeeping traditions I brought from Earth. It was like a scene from a zombie movie, just before the damn things come tearing down the street to try and eat you. An appropriate analogy, unfortunately.
The question of where we were was still unresolved, so dealing with that was our first priority. There was only one way to find out; go and look around some more. This came with obvious risks, like running into another battalion of pride demons or the Shades coming out to play. And those were only the known risks. What other magical fuckery could come out of the woodwork and hit us, I really did not want to know yet had to prepare for.
So I made a decision; when we left the hotel, only a maximum of five would go. The rest would remain at the hotel.
There were two reasons for this.
One, if we all left, there was nothing to say that demons couldn't find their way into our rooms and wait for us to come back. We needed a safe place to return to at all times, and the only way we guarantee such a thing was by occupying one. The second reason is that most cars have five seats. If the scouting group needed to move faster than walking or escape, I could break into a car, hotwire it and drive us where we needed to go.
I would've preferred to drive from the start, using the whole bunch of cars in the hotel carpark, but I reckoned that taking cars from a little further away from the hotel would protect its location from prying eyes. Internal combustion engines are not quiet. I was hoping we wouldn't have to go far for some answers.
The recon group was made up of the three mages and Mariette, along with myself.
Why the mages were going was obvious; we were in a magical place, identifying where exactly would likely require their knowledge. Plus they could handle crowd control of shade demons without using up ammunition. Mariette was an intelligence officer, deducing things was her thing. She might spot things that the rest of us wouldn't.
Ideally, Julie would have come along too, but I didn't want Tam to be without at least one of us, until we had good news. I had never seen Tam so upset. She was usually the one to drag us out of sadness or despair, so it scared the shit out of me. She wouldn't have done anything to herself, but leaving her alone was still cruelty.
So, as soon as I was sure the group had eaten and washed, I practically shoved them out the front door and brought them due north.
The Old State House, as the name suggests, used to be a government building. The newer ones were not far away; City Hall, the Federal Building, various courthouses.
My idea was simple; we could find out a lot by checking them out. We could find documents, not to mention more weapons and ammo. If someone was trying to fool us, that could expose the trick; replicating government documents wouldn't have been the first thing I would recreate if I was trying to put someone in a bizarro version of their own world. Guns are one thing, useless-to-demons paperwork is another.
And if we didn't find any documents, that was itself a clue.
So up Congress Street we went, past another skyscraper, the place as deserted as could be. Deserted is the right word for another reason.
"Jesus, it is hot," I said, scratching at my shoulder under the strap of my Kevlar, "Don't ever remember it being this warm, even in July."
"I don't suggest you visit Tevinter in summer then," Dorian remarked, taking it all in stride, "This is about an average day in the northern provinces. To say nothing of Seheron."
"We do have magic," Aurelia countered, "It is not so much a burden when you can conjure ice from the air. Our troops on Seheron are alive because of it."
Our troops referring to the Western Legions of the Tiberii; the territory under their control ran north-south for hundreds of kilometres and included plenty of highlands. Not every soldier would've been comfortable in an equatorial jungle.
"True, though that would not help Samuel here, would it?" Dorian replied, "Unless he likes warm water splashed on his back." The temperature of the ice being magically created, it would've disappeared on contact with me.
I exhaled, as if trying to relieve myself of some of my bodyheat. "You're missing the point," I said, "It's warmer than I remember."
"So?" Armen asked, wiping his forehead, "You didn't actually live here, right?" I wasn't the only one affected, obviously.
"I came here every winter and every summer, I know how warm or cold it gets," I replied, "My grandmother's place is only 10 miles thataway." I pointed off to the west, wondering if there was a copy of the house sitting there. Something to investigate later.
"He's saying that it's a clue," Mariette said impatiently, "An inconsistency with his own memory."
"Strike one against the theory that someone constructed this place from my mind," I agreed, "It's gotta be a hundred degrees out here, it's humid as hell, and we're in the shade." It sure as shit wasn't a dry heat, like the Syrian desert. The Bank of America building was drawing a long shadow over us, and thank the Maker for it. Actually, wait, it's a bank, so no creature calling itself God has anything to do with it.
I spared a quick glance at Faneuil Hall as we moved, but saw no demons. I half expected it to be a hive of them. Any time I saw it in the real world during summer, there were people hanging around the front of it. No reason why demons wouldn't like the spot too, but apparently I was wrong in that thinking.
Aurelia took point, her barriers swirling around her, as we approached the nearest entrance to City Hall via the carpark. She stopped suddenly, which sent the rest of us searching for a target. None could be found. Instead, she picked something blue and white off the ground. "What are these?" she asked, holding the thing up over her shoulder, still looking forward, "Some sort of armband?"
I knew exactly what it was. "It's a facemask," I said, "You put it over your face, stops you breathing in stuff you shouldn't." Memories of smelling burning gasoline and latrine shit came flooding back, lacking anything like fondness. Where are the E4 mafia when you need them?
"I keep seeing them on the ground," Aurelia clarified, "Everywhere."
"So do I," I admitted, "But they're recommended in flu season, so maybe they've just been laying about since winter."
"It isn't flu season," Aurelia pointed out correctly. Or at least, it wasn't in this world.
"You think it's a clue?" Mariette asked, taking the thing and turning it over in her hands, "I can't smell anything?" She made a show of sniffing the air like a dog, before rolling her eyes. The miasma theory of disease was the most popular on Thedas at the time, bad smells spread sickness.
"Might have something to do with the plague?" Armen replied, "The pamphlets I found spoke about a disease spreading across the world."
We all stopped dead and looked at him. "What pamphlets?" I asked.
Armen frowned, and rummaged in his robes for a moment, producing a newspaper opened to a random page. It was the Boston Globe.
"Waiting to exhale; Covid-19's resurgence has many on edge," I read aloud, "Vaccines, say many infectious disease experts, are a shining light amid the gathering clouds." A quick scan of the rest of the story and the paper itself told a tale of mass disease. Global pandemic.
What the fuck had happened when I left, I wondered, handing the thing off to Mariette and Aurelia. I hadn't thought it possible for the world to go to shit more than it already had, not with all the institutions and politics that had built up in the modern world. "You might have mentioned this before," I said, annoyed.
"Vaccines?" Mariette asked, "Is that some Earth type of medicine?" I groaned, rubbing my face. It was too hot to explain advanced biology that I didn't fully understand myself.
"A more advanced form of what you would call inoculation," Armen replied, matter-of-factly, "Earth studies of diseases are advanced enough to create wholly artificial inoculation sources. We're still centuries behind." The man who had trawled through the library of books I had brought through the Thedas in great detail, and I was finding it increasingly convenient to have him explain.
"This paper is marked July 23rd 2021," I said, pointing at the top of the opened page, "Three years after I … fell through the Fade to Thedas." It looked like an old one, the paper had been folded many times, but not old enough to be irrelevant.
"But not three years to the day," Aurelia said slowly, "It's not summer on Thedas. Interesting. If it had been exactly to the day, then I would have thought we were on Terra. Lack of humans be damned."
"Maybe the days are slightly shorter on Thedas?" I said, not convinced of that myself, "Though I think you're right. I would've noticed a large difference, our watches are all tuned to Earth time." I held up my wrist and tapped the watch in question.
Aurelia nodded, before flicking through the Globe a little.
Dorian grabbed the paper and examined it, his eyes narrowed. "What is this lettering?" he asked, "I've never seen it before. It's certainly less elegant than Dwarva script, it's very … blocky. How does anyone read this?" He cocked an eyebrow at me, expecting an answer.
I grit my teeth, getting annoyed by the twenty questions in the middle of the street. I ushered the whole lot of them forward, out of sight and into the basement car park of City Hall, as quickly as I could. "It's Latin script, most languages of Earth are written in it," I said as we moved, "Same general idea as yours though, same number of letters, all of which represent the same sort of sounds." In fact, even where accents rather than letters would be used in Orlesian-French matched up between the two kinds.
The man squinted at the page again. "And I suppose you use it now exclusively?" Dorian asked, "Since Tiberia here can read it?"
I was about to explain that the lettering was actually from the same place that Aurelia's ancestor had arrived from, but Aurelia grabbed the paper back from Dorian, and pointed it at him. "Not a word of this to anyone, Pavus," she said, "The secrets of the other world belong to the House of the Tiberii. We have killed many, many people who have discovered too much over the course of the entire history of the the Imperium. Adding you to the list is a simple matter."
The whole Tevinter politics thing was really getting on my nerves now. "Enough," I said, before another dynastic spat could begin, "Does any of this help us know where we really are?"
"There is one thing... there are too many details here for this to be a trick," Mariette pointed out, as we started moving again through the mostly empty car park, albeit slowly, "It's not some illusion based on half-remembered places. There are details that even I wouldn't re-create if I was trying to fool or comfort someone."
To illustrate her point, she kicked another mask on the concrete floor. I had to admit, it was a compelling one. "Does that help narrow it down?" I asked the mages, "Any of your theories closer to being eliminated?"
"Yes," said Dorian.
"No," said Aurelia, at the same time.
I rolled my eyes. "Explain," I said, "In terms a kid would understand, if you please."
"If this place wasn't taken from your memories, then it can't be an adjacent realm," Dorian said, "If you say you came to Thedas via the Fade, then the Fade is the only place we could be."
I rolled my hand around in the air, telling him to go on. "Why's that?" I asked, when he didn't understand.
"Why, you ask?" Dorian continued, "The Fade is the only place where both reality can be reshaped like this, and where there is access to your world."
"Or we're still in a Fade-adjacent realm, a phenomenon which we still do not understand fully," Aurelia said, "You have no idea if such a place is capable of accessing Terra indirectly, through dreams for instance." Dreaming being something that humans of both worlds did, and was tied heavily to magic on Thedas at the very least. It was the most reliable way to 'enter' the Fade, in fact.
I grabbed the top of my helmet, desiring to rip out the hair underneath it. The argument between the two Tevinter mages over where we were was beginning to annoy me even more than their dynastic rivalry, and all the fun that brought along. "Dorian, what would prove that we're in the Fade once and for all?" I asked, "Tell me there's some definitive proof or test."
"There isn't one," Dorian replied, "If we're in the Fade, everything we see could be an illusion. This isn't the Raw Fade or a greater demon's realm though, or else we'd be able to spot the Black City in the sky somewhere."
"The Black City," I said flatly, "The place the magisters of old corrupted trying to become gods?"
Dorian's face scrunched up, and Aurelia's gaze turned into a glare. Touchy subject for 'Vints, it seems. I held my hands up, showing that I didn't want that argument... The scion of House Pavus had mercy on me and didn't go there.
"Outside of illusions, you can see the city in the sky wherever you are," Dorian replied, "If we saw that, we could be absolutely sure. Alternatively, we need to continue exploring. Certain kinds of demon behaviour, anomalies in the world, rifts, those would be proof."
"He's right," Aurelia added, "If this is an adjacent realm, it probably has limits in its size and it would be very old. Wards will have broken down, Fade creatures will have forced their way in."
"Is the behaviour of the demons we have seen so far not enough?" Armen asked.
"Shades attack at random wherever they are," Dorian said, "And Pride demons are not driven mad by reality either, so a coordinated group of them could exist in the Fade or in an adjacent realm."
"The Wraith not attacking us is the only evidence for the Fade," Aurelia insisted, "All the other evidence points to my theory."
"The absence of other evidence to the contrary isn't quite the same thing as proof, dear Tiberia," Dorian said, "But let's not annoy our companions here by rehashing that argument again."
Collating what they said in my head, I rubbed my chin absently, as I got the general idea together.
"So ideally..." I thought aloud, "We need to see as much of this place as possible?"
"That would speed things up," Armen said with a nod, "The more types of demons we see, the better a picture we can have." That more or less confirmed what I was starting to think was necessary, and not just for finding out where we were.
If we needed to survive in that realm for long and if we wanted to gather things we could bring back to Thedas, we needed to range a whole lot further than what would be safe walking distance. So, I made a decision.
I walked over to a particular vehicle, which I had noticed as Aurelia and Pavus were beginning to quarrel again, and tried the door on the driver's side. It opened right up, as expected given what type of vehicle it was. I reached inside and pulled down the sun visor... and the keys to the thing fell down.
Two wins in a row.
Happy as a clam, I sauntered back to the group, swinging the keys around on the ring they were attached to, jingling them around.
"Who wants to go for a drive?" I asked.
The Humvee's engine roared as I turned it out of the car park, barely clearing the roof, and put my foot down hard on the gas.
Beside me, Aurelia gripped the side of the door and the dash in front, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. The mix of groans and clatters from behind indicated that the others were not handling the speed particularly well either. I couldn't help but laugh like a madman; it was really, really good to be back behind the wheel.
Bellona is a lovely horse, but horses haven't got shit on a 4x4.
"Do you have to go so fast?" Aurelia complained from beside me.
"I think I'm going to be sick," Dorian added in support, as I swung the vehicle right abruptly, taking us past Quincy Market. My driving style always was... robust.
"The faster we go, the less time demons get to react," I said, "I think demons don't know what a car is, they might run at the sound of it."
"I won't get to see them at all, this is making me dizzy!" Aurelia shouted over the engine, as I turned the wrong way onto JFK.
"What can I say, I'm confident," I shouted back, "All this has given me an idea!"
"What idea?" Armen laughed back, "If we go fast enough in this thing, we'll somehow go back to Thedas?"
"It ain't no DeLorean!" I replied with a laugh of my own, "What, are you afraid of a bit of speed?"
To emphasize the point, I took us around a corner and piled on the gas pedal once again. The Humvee roared up the street, passing by railings that sectioned off half the road space for restaurant seating. It was a tight fit, but I hadn't lost my touch, and we passed by no problem.
"On the contrary!" Armen declared, "I wanna see just how fast this thing can go!"
"Well, maybe we'll give it a spin on the interstate later," I said, "But for now, I wanna see just how lucky we are."
We sped past the Old North Church, as I navigated mostly by a tourist map and compass. Our destination wasn't marked on the former, but I knew it was there, because it had been the subject of conversation with my maternal grandparents when I had told them I was joining the Army.
I slowed down as we negotiated another set of corners, not sure of where I was exactly. We briefly went the wrong way, before I realised we were heading too far west and the road was curving south.
A pair of wraiths, translucent orange ones, watched idly from the shade of a tree next to a baseball field on the coast of the massive harbour as I performed a three point turn. Feeling cheery, I gave them a little wave before we took off again. No way they could have done anything to us inside the vehicle, it was an up-armoured version for the Boston PD.
"No attack again," Dorian noted, talking about the wraiths not doing anything, "Told you."
"We're here," I realised, seeing a sign that I should've noticed the first time. I turned off again, towards the coast.
The buildings filling the windscreen fell away in favour of Boston harbour, the flat blue surface of the water completely flat, save for boats tied up at anchor in the distance. I stopped the vehicle where the road stopped, at the start of a large pier. For a second I thought I might have been out of luck, but then I spotted something over the top of the boat workshop to my right.
I grinned widely and hopped out of the Humvee quickly, rounding the back of it and hefting my weapon into my arms.
"Where are we?" Dorian asked as he got out, "A port?" He glanced back at a large car park tucked away past the road we had just driven up, which was quite full.
No point maintaining any suspense, considering the truth was written all over the place on every piece of signage.
"United States Coast Guard Base," I replied, "A military facility."
No one replied to that, because we finally cleared the workshop and got another view of the harbour... and the two other piers right beside us. Sitting docked beside them were two ships of the Coast Guard.
"Warships," I said to the others, "Bingo."
Not the most formidable in the world, but with the main autocannon on their bows, they could tear every vessel on Thedas a new asshole without anyone on board breaking a sweat.
They were as long as the largest vessels ever built on Thedas. The Orlesian galleons we had captured were just north of 55 metres in length. These ships were more than 80 metres long, as long
They had no sails, as they were driven by internal combustion engines, like those in cars but far larger.
Despite all this being obvious, in general if not the exact details, another thing about them seemed to stick out to my companions.
"Why is it painted white and red?" Aurelia asked, curiously, "And all over? Wouldn't that be hugely expensive?"
I looked at her, exasperated that this was the only question she had. Everyone else was looking at me like that was a burning question in their minds too. I shook my head and smirked.
"Not entirely sure," I replied, "Identification, to stop rust... or both."
"To stop rust?" Dorian inquired, "Is it held together by nails?"
"No, it's made of welded metal," I replied breezily, not really paying attention, "The whole thing would rust and then sink otherwise."
That really brought the show to a halt, with only Armen not looking on in shock, presumably because he had read about this somewhere.
"It's made entirely of metal?" Mariette said, squinting at the ship and using her hand to shield her eyes from the sun, "Huh, I can't see any big seams in the side."
"We're working on that technology back in Troy," Armen replied matter-of-factly, "Metallurgy is a big priority for us, so we can wean ourselves off the need to use silverite. We're still years away from metal being cheap enough to build whole ships from though."
We walked right up the side of the nearest one, right up to the gangplank. The thing loomed over us as we approached, and everyone stopped to look at the cannon in its rounded turret at the front.
"A ship entirely made of metal would be... invincible," Dorian said in awe, "A ship that can't be set on fire, that can deflect cannon shots or Antivan firepots, to say nothing of that weapon it has?"
"Get a big enough cannon and you could get through the metal," I said, "How do you think our realms go to war? Anyway, the point isn't the ship, it's the weapons on board. There'll be Ma Deuce, maybe some two-forties. Plus whatever the helicopters, the ship compliment and the shore armoury have inside."
Everyone looked at me blankly, before I realised I had used a bunch of slang.
"Heavy repeaters, precision firelances, assault firelances," I clarified, "With enough ammunition to keep us having all sorts of fun for a while."
"So it's Christmas," Armen said cheerily, "Right?"
"Yeah, Santa Claus has left us big presents under the tree," I replied, "Courtesy of the Coast Guard. We'll need to check out both ships and the shore buildings, but I think we better dedicate a day or two to doing that. Let's get back on the road. First priority is finding out where the hell we are."
We all turned around to get back to the Humvee, to a most unexpected sight.
A Desire demon was standing at the start of the pier, watching us like we were a circus act spontaneously appearing. Which to a demon, I suppose we were.
Of all the demons in the pamphlet that Aurelia prepared, the Desire type is the most memorable.
The reason for that was simple; their natural form was a sort of succubus. A lithe human/elvhen female, basically no clothing, classic demonic horns, small claws, and a chitinous tail that was as long as their legs complete with spike. This one was standing with its legs crossed one behind the other, its clawed hands on its wide hips, without a care in the world.
It was a true deer-in-the-headlights moment.
We all stared at it, it stared at us. It didn't seem particularly hostile, though the fact it was more corporeal than the wraiths we had encountered before made me far more wary of it. Aside from Mariette, the others seem enraptured.
"Desire demon," Aurelia said, snapping out of the trance first before slapping Armen on the shoulder, "Wake up you idiots." She flourished her naginata, spinning it around until the blade was pointed towards the demon.
The other two mages suddenly flinched. It seems the demon had tried something on with us. Mariette and I naturally had nothing to worry about, and our close presence seemed to give at least some protection to the rest.
"It tried to get in your heads?" I asked.
"It succeeded," Aurelia replied, "It felt like being trapped in a room for an hour."
Dorian and Armen nodded in agreement, pulling their staves off their backs.
I looked over towards the demon again, and its demeanour had changed. Rather than looking at us with curiosity, its failure to bring us under its spell had frustrated it. It eyes were sharper, and it was standing with its legs apart, braced for a hit.
Mariette raised her weapon to kill the thing, but I put my hand on the top of the weapon to stop her. I saw an opportunity here.
"Wait, let's see if we can't get some intel," I said, recalling the details from Aurelia's pamphet, "Desire demons love to talk, right?"
"Only to get you to give over your body for possession, or whatever else they want," Aurelia replied flatly, "They try any bargain to do so. We should kill it."
To quote her own written words, 'Desire demons are not terrible because they lie about what they can deliver to you. They are terrible because they tell incomplete truths and give you what you want by the most terrible means.'
Real Faustian stuff. But I wasn't about to sign on the dotted line for anything such a demon was selling, and we had plenty of leverage besides. Namely a bunch of guns, two powerful mages and a walking nuke.
"Well, we are intelligent, well-armed people," I retorted, "Let's see if we can't force it to bargain for its life. Follow me. Be ready. Don't use fire or lightning magic." Didn't want the place to blow up and our whole reason for being here along with it, after all.
I led the way back down to shore, weapon held ready to come up at a split-second's notice, my right forefinger hovering just over the trigger. The demon smirked nastily, and began advancing towards us, claws held up so we could get a real good look at that.
"How scary," I muttered to myself, wondering what the demon would make of me unloading thirty rounds into its well-endowed chest.
We were about half way between the ship and the end of the pier when we came within earshot for raised voices. There was no breeze or wind to speak of, which was something I found odd considering the harbour was always damn windy in my memories. Still far enough away that we could prevent being torn apart before bullets and spells did their job, in other words.
"Hi, that's far enough," I said, waggling the fingers around the foregrip of my weapon, equally in greeting and warning, "I'm Sam. These are my friends. Who do I have the pleasure of addressing?"
The demon stopped stalking towards us and stood at ease. It was hard to know where to look with it. Its eyes seemed to shoot right through you, but you could hardly look anywhere else, considering it was buck-ass naked and had a perfect form before the elbows and knees. I went with the eyes, despite the fear that the thing could read my mind.
"I am Nocnitsa," the demoness said, in a voice that sounded like three or four different women speaking at once. It was a strain on the ear to listen to her speak, but I persevered. Not someone I'll ever forget.
"You are human?" she asked.
I guess real people wandering around the place in physical form was not a usual occurrence.
"That obvious huh?" I replied with false cheer, "I hope you don't hold it against me."
The demon shook her head and clicked her tongue. "So many strange things," she said, to no one in particular, "The Veil fraying to shreds, the greatest powers moving in strange ways, and now this..."
The eyes zoned in on me again, forcing me to grip my weapon a little tighter.
"But this is not the first time for you, is it?" Nocnitsa purred, "I can smell it on you. You have been here before." She advanced a step, before I aimed my firelance right at her.
"Ah ah! Don't even think about it," I warned, "Where is here?"
Stupid fucking move. I had just given away the game. I should've asked what the hell she was talking about.
The demon tutted. "Now why would I tell you a thing like that?" she drawled, "What's in it for me?"
"Not being turned into a charred, perforated pile of meat?" I suggested, "You are a little outnumbered."
Nocnitsa laughed mockingly. "Am I?" she asked, before slapping her hands.
Unfortunately, the mockery of one demon grew into the mockery of a good two dozen, as more demonic forms came out from around the boat shed. Most of them were Shades, but three or four were desire demons themselves. The Shades were acting strangely too, twitching and caressing their sides as they barked their laughs. They had been turned to thralls, it seemed.
We had the advantage of the pier being a sort of chokepoint, but if there were still more demons beyond the buildings, we had nowhere to run but the ship. The prospect of being hunted by demons inside it was not particularly desirable.
Not just for me, apparently.
"You will need a lot more than that," Aurelia sniffed, before tapping the pier underneath her with the tip of her naginata. The gesture summoned a tornado of magic around her, a set of barriers beyond any I had ever seen her summon before. She glowed blue with mana.
My brow raised, I looked back to Nocnitsa, pretty much expecting a fight now that Aurelia had prepared to attack so openly. Ah well, so much for my plan. I aimed for the centre of the demon's mass, and was about to shoot... until it made a gesture. The demon put its hand to its chin in thought, examining Aurelia.
"Perhaps you do have something I want," it said, "A man who has been here before, and a witch with more power than she has any right to possess. This tale I have heard before."
"What tale?" I asked.
"It matters not," Nocnitsa replied, "You are not supposed to exist, here or beyond the Veil. Tell me of how you came, and I shall tell you what you wish to know."
"Whatever I wish to know?" I asked, "I can ask you however many questions I want, on any subject?"
"Yes, yes," Nocnitsa said dismissively, "Now answer my question!"
I wasn't about to make two stupid moves in one conversation... and I made up nicely for my mistake before too, if I do say so.
"You think I was born fucking yesterday?" I cracked back, "Seems you want to know something I know just a bit more. Our answers first."
The demon raised her head and gave an ear-piercing scream of frustration, pacing from side-to-side.
"Do not try me!" she roared, "Ask your questions, but hurry! My patience has its limits."
I lowered my weapon, indicating acceptance of the quid pro quo, before turning to Dorian and Aurelia. They glanced between each other, before Aurelia gestured for Dorian to speak. She wanted to keep an eye on the demons beyond.
Dorian came level with me, and gave a little sarcastic bow from the waist, getting a hiss for his trouble.
"Dorian of House Pavus," he said, introducing himself, "I don't suppose this is the Fade we are standing in right now?"
Nocnitsa's lips curled away from her sharp teeth and her brow gathered, a look of contempt that shouted one thing. 'Is this person brainless?'
"Of course you're in the Fade," she said flatly, "Have you not seen the City? And my kind everywhere?"
The Tevinter mage nodded sagely, stroking his beard.
"Thank you very much," Dorian said, barely containing his smugness as he turned around back to Aurelia, "You see?"
She did not seem particularly phased by this revelation.
"We have not seen the Black City," Aurelia said, waving a hand up at the sky, "Care to point to its current location?"
A fair question. We had certainly looked.
The demon sighed with what I identified as exasperation, and pointed off to our left, over the top of the other Coast Guard ship, due east. We all looked in that direction... but the sun was blinding. It was still early enough in the morning for it to be low.
I could see nothing but the sun's rays. Annoyed, I couldn't help but follow the obvious logic.
"Is it the sun?" I asked, "I thought it was the Black City, not the Golden-Enough-To-Blind-You City?" At least, not any more.
"No, it is not the Sun," Nocnitsa answered, like she was addressing a kindergartener, "The daylight is blocking your view, for now. In a few hours, you should be able to see it without hindrance."
Doubting that, I looked again with one eye and used my thumb to block out a direct view of the Sun so I could see things beside it. This was something I saw in a movie some time about fighter pilots, a way of seeing enemy aircraft diving out of the sun's light to ambush.
A black speck appeared, hovering in the air. It definitely seemed to be a structure of some kind.
"There it is," I declared, "It's very far away though."
"Well, these are the furthest reaches of the Fade," Nocnitsa replied, finally sounding like she was talking to an adult and not a stupid child, "You are as far from the City as it is possible to get."
I looked to Dorian for confirmation. His eyebrows were in the process of migrating to join his hairline in bewilderment, and he just shrugged at me, having no idea if that was true or not.
"Guess we couldn't see it in the dark, behind the towers," Armen mused, "Well, that explains pretty much everything."
"Not quite," Dorian said, "If this is the Fade, why are there no rifts here?"
"What is a rift?" Nocnitsa asked.
"Never mind," Dorian said, raising a finger, "I think you answered that already, actually, when you talked about the Veil fraying. I guess it is not fraying here."
"Not yet," the demon smiled, "But it is only a matter of time."
Dorian gave a single laugh. "If only you knew how ironic that phrase is," he said. I couldn't help but feel it myself.
Mariette cleared her throat, and the demon craned its neck to look at her directly. "Why does this place look like his world?" she asked, "What's the point?"
The demon smiled widely, genuinely. I realised that this question gave over an answer she desired.
"So you are from another world," the demon said, its eyes turning entirely black, "I simply must know how."
"Now now, remember our deal?" I said, "Our answers first."
Nocnitsa exhaled through her teeth, spittle flying out in rage. "All of this must be the whim of the ruler of this part of the Fade," she said quickly, "It is known to be … eccentric."
How fucking cryptic, I thought. "And who's that?" I asked.
The demon stepped to the edge of the water, tail snapping this way and that. She looked at the skyscrapers for half a minute before answered.
"Ambition," Nocnitsa replied with a sneer over her shoulder, like saying it tasted bad, "Many owe allegiance to that name. Many more have tried to seize the realm ruled under it. All have failed, until the walls came down yesterday. We have invaded and Ambition is nowhere to be found, only the lickspittles. It is now our time to rule."
The demon spun on her heel towards us, and stopped exactly where I had told her to the first time. The whistle of Aurelia's naginata spinning came from behind me, ominously.
"I have done my part, mortal," Nocnitsa said, "Tell me how you are here. Not just in the Fade, but how you can exist at all? I know what you are. Give me the how, or I'll peel the flesh from your bones and devour your ichor." A forked tongue licked her lips.
How very dramatic.
My thumb tapping the side of my firelance, I pondered just letting rip with every bullet in it off the hip. I had what I needed, after all. We knew where we were.
I also had no fucking idea how I came to Thedas, so I didn't have what the demon wanted. I would've considered it a freak event if it wasn't for all the other people who had experienced the same thing, supposedly.
But I decided to give diplomacy a shot, if only because the bitch had shown one card from up her sleeve and she could have others. Without the ability to dissolve demons simply by touching them, I was far more vulnerable than before.
I gave her the basics.
"A portal opened up on my world," I said, "I fell through it. Landed in Orlais. I don't know how it happened."
The demon cocked her head, like that was strange... but a canine-filled grimace soon split her face, an unnatural expression from a human perspective.
"So it's true..." she said, "There is a portal to another world here, somewhere."
"I don't know if there is or isn't," I replied, "All I know is that there was."
"What was opened can be reopened," Nocnitsa purred, "To think that there was such a rich source of power right under our noses. No wonder Ambition kept it hidden."
I had to ask.
"What do you intend to do?" I asked.
"I am not like Ambition," Nocnitsa said, "I will not settle for a corner of reality. I will use the power of this other world to take all of this one. And when that is complete, perhaps I shall take it too."
Of course, this creature had no idea about Earth. About how magic didn't work there. About the magical immunity of humans. About the scale and destructiveness of our weaponry.
"Well, good luck," I replied, "All I want to do is get the hell out of the Fade and never come back. No offence."
"None taken," Nocnitsa began, "I don't require you to live any longer, so allow me to oblig..."
A cry from above echoed through the air, interrupting the betrayal speech of the villainous Nocnitsa and sending all eyes upwards, demonic or otherwise.
Three eagles were flying above us, beginning to circle. Three, extremely familiar eagles; one golden-brown, one white headed, one jet-black. The sight of them was baffling, yet welcome. Even more so when we saw what the demons' reaction to their arrival was.
"Fuck, we've spent too much time gabbing like fools!" Nocnitsa shouted back at her fellow desire demons, "Move!"
The others immediately ran at inhuman speed out of sight, the shades sliding along after them at a much slower pace. Nocnitsa herself bounced forward a few steps, before remembering I existed.
"We'll meet again," she promised.
"In your dreams!" I shouted back, evidently feeling that more irony was what the situation needed.
I brought my firelance to my shoulder and opened fire, as the demon ran like hell away. She jinked and dodged, but several shots caught her between the shoulder blades and on the lower torso. Nocnitsa was a lot tougher than she looked.
By the time Aurelia had generated a barrage of icicles to send chasing after the demon, she had rounded the corner, and deep purple blood lay in splatters all the way from her starting point.
I sighed, having hoped to kill Nocnitsa at least. I wasn't sure the other demons had been able to hear what I had said, so it would've at least denied them the snippet of intel I had given over.
Fuck it.
"Well, that went swimmingly," Dorian said happily, "We're somehow still alive, and we have information. Terrifying, breeches-shitting information, but still."
"So we're in the middle of a demonic warzone," Armen stated, "In case anyone didn't get the letter."
No shit, Sherlock. I showed him the middle finger, which he returned doubly.
"At least we seem to be behind the front lines," I said, clinging to that fact a little too much.
"We've also got more questions than before too," Mariette frowned, before she thumbed up at the sky, "Like what the hell are those eagles really?"
The birds in question were soaring away, apparently following the desire demons from above. UAVs came to mind... and to my dear Thedosian readers, explaining what those are would take far too long.
"They're surveillance," I answered, "The real question is 'surveillance for who?'"