.45 Caliber Soul
Chapter 10 – ItWhatever was making that light, I just knew it wasn't friendly. I left Talim there and bounded downstairs, the .45 at the ready. Mitsurugi was in the middle of the first floor room, his katana drawn, staring at the door.
When I caught sight of the light source, I stopped, frozen in place by sheer astonishment. Raphael and Xianghua were right behind me; I heard Xianghua gasp.
"It" was a glowing orange ball about two or two and a half feet across. It was floating about waist high, in flagrant violation of the law of gravity, moving slowly across the courtyard in our direction.
It had an eye. A pupil and iris, right in the middle. Pointing straight at us.
Definitely not friendly.
I jumped off near the base of the stairs, went down on one knee, and aimed at it.
It reached the door, and Mitsurugi backed away from it slowly, his blade in a guard position. Unfortunately, he backed right into my sightline, so I couldn't fire.
The ball-thing stopped in midair, three feet in from the doorframe.
Suddenly, there were all these—I don't know what you'd call them. Bones, body segments, Tinkertoys from hell, whatever they were, a cloud of them flew in from the courtyard. They looked like loose dinosaur fossils.
The stuff formed a swirling cloud around the ball-thing, then coalesced into a body of sorts. It had two legs, a kind of hip structure just below the ball, shoulders above it, and arms that ended in gnarled hands; a neck, but no head. The last few segments fused into a large sword in the thing's right hand. It was a nasty-looking sword made of a shiny black metal..
A headless monster with a giant eye in its belly and a giant black sword. If that doesn't give you the creepin' willies, there's something wrong with you.
Mitsurugi was the first to move. He took a swing at it with his katana, the thing parried it and swung back, but he dodged. It brought its sword down in a smashing overhand arc, but Mitsurugi blocked and side-stepped. He hit the thing with a clean stoke that should have severed its left arm—but the katana clanged like it had struck stone. The creature gave Mitsurugi a roundhouse kick that sent him flying across the room.
That gave me a clear shot. I fired twice. Both shots hit, one in the hip, one in the right shoulder. They bounced off, striking sparks as they hit.
The .45's slide locked in the open position. I had put in the partially-used magazine.
It charged, swinging the sword at me from my left, about neck high. The thing was fast. I spent maybe half a second staring dumbly at my empty weapon before I realized what was happening. I ducked and rolled under the stroke and away from the creature. I heard the sword chop the air in half above me.
I was trying to get back on my feet, reload the .45, and reorient to the threat axis all at the same time, and not having a whole lot of success at any of it. The thing was standing almost on top of me, bringing the sword around for a vertical stroke. Xianghua jumped off the staircase and hit it with a flying kick which knocked it off balance. It managed to catch her ankle with its free hand and throw her away across the room.
She landed on her feet like a cat as the creature recovered and stood up. I was able to get back and away from the thing and get on with the business of reloading.
Xianghua drew her sword and rushed it, taking a stab at the eye. It dodged back and parried the stroke, then took a swipe back at her, forcing her to parry with her own blade. It drover her back several steps with furious sword strokes, then just as quickly backed away and started up the stairs.
At the top of the stairs, Talim had gotten to her feet, and was standing with a blade in her right hand; her left arm dangled at her side.
Mitsurugi was back on his feet, and he chased after it. It stopped; the eye rotated so that it was looking at him through its back, and it attacked back down the stairs left-handed. The thing kicked Mitsurugi backward, and he tumbled over the body of the big blond guy. The thing's eye rotated back to its original orientation, and it marched back up the steps.
By this time, I'd sorted myself out and reloaded. If the thing got up to the top of the steps, among the kids—well, I didn't want to let that happen.
The thing had gone a step or two when Raphael charged up the steps with a yell and slammed into its "back." The creature spun its eye around again. Raphael had a pistol—he must have gotten it from one of the dead cavalrymen—and he jammed it right up against the thing's pupil and fired.
The sound it made, it sounded like a tortured soul shrieking from the depths of hell. I never want to hear that sound again.
The thing swatted at Raphael with its sword. It hit, and Raphael fell backwards off the step.
The creature staggered and stumbled. It tried to reverse direction again, but it lost its footing and fell off the steps. The fall would have broken an ordinary person's bones, but the creature got right back up. It was swinging its sword wildly, lashing out in random directions.
"It can't see!" Xianghua said
She went at it from one side, clanging her sword against it. The creature swung back at her, but inaccurately. She dodged, taunting it, deliberately making noise to keep its attention.
I slipped around to the other side, aimed right for the glowing eye-ball, and fired.
I emptied the magazine into it. With each shot, the thing let out that shriek again.
After the seventh round, the orange glow from the ball was noticeably dimmer. The thing staggered and fell. The glow went out and the ball, black now, collapsed into a pile of ash. The thing's body dissolved at the same time.
"I think we killed it." I said to no one in particular.
It was suddenly very quiet.
I looked out the door. The sky was clearing. Several cavalrymen were in the courtyard, watching the door. I walked out, trying my best to project some serious attitude. They saw me, noted the absence of the glowing eye thing, and started backing away toward the gate.
I came back in. Mitsurugi and Xianghua were standing over the fallen Raphael. The look on their faces told me everything I needed to know.
. . . to be continued . . .