Disclaimer: The characters within are used without permission for the sheer non profit enjoyment of fans of the Gabriel Knight genre.
Part 11
Baron Avery gripped his sword loosely, peering darkly into the woods as he and his men trod down the path. A soaked soldier hurried forward, his wet hair slapping against his eyes as he walked. "Milord, what if they aren't here?"
"They're here." He snapped. "I know it."
"No reason for them to stay, Milord." He said his peripheral vision forcing him to turn to the left. As he turned back a heavy fist connected to his nose, sending him stumbling backward and finally dropped him to the ground.
"Don't question my rationale or my instructions again. You won't live to regret it."
The man nodded, holding his bloodied nose as he pushed himself back to his feet and made certain to keep his distance on the Baron. Thunder clapped and a flash exploded on the horizon some moments later. "Not more rain." A man complained, making certain he wasn't within arms reach of the Baron.
"We have to keep moving." The Baron pronounced. "They won't be too far ahead."
"What the—"One of the men in the front started to cry out but his breathing was suddenly labored, the end of his sentence an indistinguishable gurgle. Peering at him, he was holding an arrow that was sticking out of his gut almost buried to the feathers.
"Take cover you fools!" Avery shouted as he tore up the path and leaned against a tree. "Show yourselves cowards!"
Avery's men were in the trees, moving as quietly as they could, searching. Avery's own eyes were wide as he peered into the darkness, trying desperately to see anything at all. A sickening crunch broke the silence as one of his men cried out and stumbled into the path, his rib cage a faucet of blood.
Rain began to pour from the sky again and Avery watched as one of his men stumbled backwards onto the trail, his sword flashing against another blade. It was the woman, her sword flashing against the subtle moonlight peering through the clouds. He watched in awe as she feinted and parried—it almost seemed she was playing with him before she dropped low, spun and as she came around vaulted into the air and decapitated the man with a back swing.
"We need the woman alive!" He cried out. "We need her blood!" He started out onto the trail but a cold blade patted his shoulder.
"Good evening Baron." A man's voice stated from behind. "Pleased to see you on such a lovely night."
"Who in God's name are you that you dare to interfere with the law?"
"Law? You call this law? Perhaps a law you invented but certainly not justice."
"I asked you a question."
"And I have the sword so you should consider your requests and demands a bit more carefully." Kail looked down the path cautiously. "Alia? Are you alright?"
"I'm fine." She yelled back. "The other two are in the woods. They shouldn't give us any trouble."
"You bastard! You and your bitch have killed several good men."
"You shouldn't have brought them in on your little deed, Baron. Then they wouldn't have wasted their lives on an ideal they probably didn't understand."
"What do you want?"
"Information. What do you want Alia for?"
"That's none of your affair."
"It certainly is my affair and if you don't start talking, then we'll just end the threat with you."
Alia came jogging up and stopped before the Baron, offering him a low and exaggerated bow. "It's so nice to see you again Baron, how's the body reacting? You look mighty upset."
Avery grimaced and looked away, eyes on the ground. "The truth is that I serve a higher master—the fact of it is that our plan needed to happen tonight—during the full moon."
"Why tonight? The full moon lasts more than a day."
"We needed the first night of the full moon."
"For what specifically?" Kail poked him with the sword dragging a groan out of him.
"Years from now, there will be a ritual performed. That ritual will require blood—your blood." He nodded to Alia. "With it, the Maliphrae will be able to walk the earth without a host, free to do its work. We were to set the groundwork. Acquire the ingredients. Begin the process."
"The... maliphrae?" Alia turned away, her head down. "I see."
"What's wrong, Alia?" Kail asked looking over the Baron's shoulder. "What the hell is a Maliphrae?"
"It's a demon." Alia answered for the Baron. "A terrible demon that feeds on souls."
"Why do you want to summon that, Avery?" Kail looked at him oddly. "Don't you think it'd be suicide?"
"The demon promises any who aid in its resurrection, power in this realm. Eternal life... We would be resurrected to glory."
"Over what? It would be devouring anyone that it came in contact with and why not? We'd be nothing more than bite-sized bratwurst. You idiot."
"You would never understand, boy. Will you tell me who you are now?"
"My name is Kail Ritter of Rittersburgh."
"Ritter?" Avery looked over his shoulder. "The prophecy said that you should die."
"You're not doing too well on the fulfillment of prophecy business tonight, Baron."
"Kail, we have to stop it from happening. We have to stop them from performing the ritual."
"How? It's not going to happen for years?"
"It's hopeless for you." Avery chuckled. "There's nothing you can do."
Alia was kicking the dirt in thought, her posture loose. With a heavy sigh she looked at Kail and then to the Baron. "Perhaps now we can't do anything." She thrust her sword into Avery's stomach. "But at least we have the option."
His eyes widened as the blade burrowed easily into his stomach, his jaw quivered and fell open as he looked down. "Tell me what the body's doing now you bastard." She whispered as she twisted the blade and ripped it out.
"Alia, what the hell are you doing?" Kail asked as the baron dropped to his knees, holding the wound tightly. "Why?"
"He wouldn't have stopped."
"You sound like my uncle now—this is the reason you said that they killed my uncle. Why did you lie? Why the ruse?"
"It was the only way to assure that you might take it for what it was worth... that you might change where others were static." The baron collapsed forward into the mud with a sickening slush.
Kail looked down and rubbed his temples. "I don't apprecia—'
"Kail, we don't have time for this." She interrupted. "We have to stop them."
"How?" He sheathed his sword. "He said the ritual won't take place for quite some time. What do you want to do? Wait around?"
She sat in silence, staring off into nowhere. "We're not going to wait around." She finally said. "But we're not going to stop the ritual either."
"What? Why not?"
"To stop the ritual leaves the creature alive."
"If it's summoned then it's too late."
"No, because one of your relatives will stop the ritual and trap the monster. Then we can destroy it."
"What in the good Lord's name are you talking about?"
"No time to explain at the moment." She looked up at him. "Another of your relatives needs our help—desperately so."
"Which?" He gave her a suddenly concerned look. "My father?"
"No." She shook her head. "His name is Gabriel."
"Gabriel?" Kail sighed. "Alia, I don't have a relative named Gabriel."
"Yet." She concluded for him and extended her hand. "We have to move now—we have to pass through to his time and help him."
"Alia, I'm a rational man—Sure, I've read about the supernatural but—"
"If you've read about it, then be a part of it now. Witness it and realize that not all things that can't be explained by the church or the human conscience are evil. Come with me and help your relative before it's too late. Before he dies without a cause."
Kail pursed his lips and looked around the area at the bodies of the men they had killed. If he wanted vengeance, he had achieved it. Reinhold's death had been repaid in full. "I don't pretend to understand this, Alia." He looked her in the eyes. "But I won't let you try something like that alone."
She smiled and extended her hand, sheathing her own blade. "Then let's become history, my love."
Gabriel leaned on the hood of the car looking down at the talisman. It had been a pain in the ass to keep Mosely and Grace from coming along and he was still surprised that he had managed it at all. In the back of his mind, he was worried that they might follow anyway against his request just to be sure that he was all right.
Alia was pacing about the area watching the sky. She was wearing black leggings and a white cotton shirt. The talisman—the duplicate was the only thing he could refer to it as—was hanging from her neck. The sun had set hours ago and she had told him that when the moon was at its apex, they would be able to perform the ritual. "Alia," He started. "What if someone shows up to stop us? How are we going to stop them?"
"We won't be helpless, Gabriel." She walked over to the car and pulled out two blades, strapping one to her waist and tossing him the other. He fumbled with it as it came at him and he thanked God that it was in a scabbard.
"What the hell do you expect me to do with this?" He asked.
"Use it on anyone who tries to stop us?" She asked with a shrug.
"That's why I have this!" He patted the dagger at his belt.
"I see." She turned away and went back to pacing. "I expected something else in Shattenjäger, Gabriel. I apologize."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Kail was—he was trained differently than you."
"I imagine the time was a bit more violent." Gabriel felt his pride on the line.
"I suppose." She replied, drawing her sword and making several swift cuts in the air. "One must always be prepared though... wouldn't you agree?"
Gabriel flushed inwardly and grimaced. He hadn't felt truly prepared for any of the cases he had blundered through. "Sure." He couldn't sound convincing and he didn't try. He pulled out the sword and was surprised at how heavy it was. "Why's this so heavy? You'd think the lighter the better."
Alia frowned and crossed over to him, holding out her hand for the sword. As he passed it over to her she looked at him oddly. "This is perfectly balanced, Gabriel. Have you not had sword training?"
He shook his head. "No, I didn't." He pushed off from the car. "And I didn't have voodoo, werewolf or demon hunter training either. Come to think of it, I didn't have any training for any of this but I seem to have done an okay job so far."
"Okay gets you dead." She handed him the sword back. "I would suggest that before you investigate something else, you get some training in... in anything. Luck will only get you so far."
He wanted to continue the argument but he had to agree. More change. Damn it.
"Anyway, can we go over what we're about to do again? Just for my untrained benefit?" He let the sarcasm drip from the last five words.
"Certainly." She sheathed her sword and lifted the amulet off of her chest and peered at it. "As you're aware, when you use the talisman, there is a sensation when it's functioning—ever so slight though it may be. The idea is that the greater the use of its powers, the more energy it requires, the more you'll notice it. In order for this to work, you have to envision that feeling as you've had it before and intensify it. As you do so, we'll be able to destroy the ring and the creature inside."
"How do you know that it won't get out?"
"Because I know everything about the Maliphrae. I know its limitations and when it comes to silver, there's very little that it could accomplish."
Thunder clapped in the distance and darkened clouds rolled overhead reflecting Gabriel's mood. "Great." He complained. "This just sets the fricken scene."
Alia looked up and chuckled wryly, pacing away from the car with her eyes down. "Interesting."
"What's interesting?"
"This is exactly as it was the night that Kail and I came forward."
"You still haven't explained that little trick. How do you do that?"
"Gabriel, all things are not as you know them through legends and television. Suffice to say that I exist in any time I prefer because I'm not bound by its rules. I've been to this time countless times, I've seen the future."
"So how's this going to turn out?"
"Just because I can traverse time, doesn't mean that I can adequately predict what happens."
"Hmm." Gabriel walked away from the car. "Shall we do this then?"
"Almost... The moon is almost in position."
Gabriel pulled out a rust colored handkerchief and regarded it coolly. "Here's the ring, Alia." He said. "What should I do with it? Who should hold it?"
"We'll put it on the ground. I hope the ring itself has no sentimental value for you."
"The only value that it holds is my sanity when it's gone."
"I'm glad to hear it."
Rain started to drip from the sky lazily at first its lethargy driven to a downpour by the crash of thunder and the whip of lightning that flashed the sky.
"Why exactly does every supernatural experience have to be accompanied by this crap?" He waved his arm at the heavens. "You'd think that we'd die of colds more often than supernatural crisis."
"Shh!" She rasped at him as she started to concentrate on the amulet. "It's time."
"Nice warning!" He cried as he took the talisman and tried to remember the sensation when he warded off Von Zell. It was a strange feeling, like the pit of his stomach was being tickled from the inside. As he found that brief passage in his soul, he opened it up and from tickling came nausea, his body convulsed at the sudden expenditure but he closed his eyes and willed himself to concentrate.
"It's working." She whispered. "But we have company."
"Crap!" Gabriel mustered through his teeth as his face was contorted in thought.
"I'll take care of them." She moved away from the ring while drawing her sword and Gabriel heard a conflict. A clash of steel on steel... a gasp and a grotesque crunch... a man screaming his last breath from his lungs. It was all he could do to not look. "Keep it up, Gabriel!" Alia called as if in answer to his struggle.
The brewing storm amounted, thunder exploded as if it was directly above them. Lightning struck the ground now thirty paces away from Gabriel and he fell to the ground. "Alia!" He yelled. "I can't..."
"Shut up and concentrate, Gabriel!" She yelled over the pounding of the rain and hail that was striking the ground.
"You can't do this!" A man who was wallowing on the ground from a side wound cried out. "The Maliphrae is the only thing that can save us!"
"Nothing can save you." Alia sheathed her sword in his chest and buried it into the ground. At that moment someone struck her from behind and she tripped over the body and sprawled in the mud with a groan.
Gabriel opened his eyes and looked in horror as one of the arrivals—a man dressed in a pair of jeans and a black tee shirt, no hair—was about to slam Alia with an overhead strike. He pushed himself to his feet and drew the sword he had at his side charging to parry.
The blade came down before he was ten paces away and he yelled out, hand outstretched. An explosion of gunfire exploded over the storm and three convulsion induced shots later blood spilled from the man's mouth and he fell to the side. Gabriel looked around and saw Mosely approaching slowly. "Shouldn't have left me behind, Knight."
Relieved, Gabriel hurried over to Alia and rolled her over. "I'm alright." She said. "Just lost my breath in the fall."
"We have to hurry." Gabriel looked up. "There isn't a lot of time."
She nodded and let him help her to her feet. Moving back to the ring, they both bowed their heads and concentrated, the talismans coming to glowing life, engulfing their entire bodies in the soft golden light. Ear shattering thunder exploded overhead and Mosely cursed as his hands went to his ears. The two figures near the ring didn't seem to notice, their bodies were momentarily lifted from the ground as a lick of lightning fell between them and threw mud in every direction.
Mosely watched in wonder as the ring lifted to eye level. It seemed to swell and shrink in rapid succession before finally evaporating into a million particles, which remained confined within the blue of the lightning. The static in the air was enough to raise what little hair he had on his head and he could hear crackling all about him—no doubt the rain connecting with it. It was a wonder he hadn't been electrocuted as he noticed he was standing in a small pool of water.
As suddenly as it came, the lightning disappeared and the two figures were lowered to the ground gently. Alia collapsed forward and Gabriel managed to catch her. "Mosely!" He called. "Help me out!"
Mosely hurried over and took one of her arms, pulling her up. The rain stopped, the clouds parted and the moon winked down at them as they moved over to the car. "Is... it...done?" Alia asked, her voice a whispered rasp.
"It is." Gabriel smiled at her as he brushed wet locks of hair from his brow. "We succeeded."
"Kail would be... proud." She smiled and closed her eyes.
"Alia!" Gabriel fought back the anxious urgency in his voice but failed.
Slowly, Alia opened her eyes and smiled. "You don't think that I'd die do you?"
"You had me worried there."
"Be awfully inconvenient for your family line." Her body began to glow. "I've got to take Kail back with me... to be buried... Be so good as to visit his crypt.... I think... I think he'd like that."
Gabriel felt a rush of emotion threaten to overtake him. "Be careful, Alia... Be well."
"Always." She winked at him just before vanishing from his arms.