The Village of Puppets,
Part 2: Battle
Author: Darkness. Address: darknessdescending2000@yahoo.co.uk
Author's Note: Once again, I don't own the Malus Codicium, it was created by sci-fi author Dan Abnett (who rocks!), now that that's cleared up, don't sue me!
Sudeny, Czech Republic: Night
Zhuge Liang got out of the truck along with Edmund and Paul. They scanned the surrounding area.
They had pulled up in the town centre where they had seen the car, they had been tracking, pull up just outside a restaurant before they had headed off.
The rain had become a torrent.
A fourth figure emerged from the cab of the truck; it looked around at the deserted street.
"I'm afraid my team will not be able to get any altitude in this rain Inquisitor," it said, it's voice male, "we shall have to drive to wherever the Arch Heretic is."
Zhuge turned to face the figure.
"Not to worry Sebastian," he replied, "I already know gargoyles cannot glide in heavy rain."
Sebastian sunk his head apologetically. "Still Inquisitor, I am sorry."
Sebastian towered over the Chinese Inquisitor. His skin was a deep shade of purple, a pair of small horns protruded from his forehead while a bony crest acted, as his eyebrows. His wings, like most gargoyles, were on his back, with clawed talons resting upon their tops. He had a long shock of dark grey hair that was tied back in a ponytail. His eyes were a light green; he had a small nose and a square jaw. He was dressed in a heavily armoured black body glove, with a black, sleeveless leather jacket such as the one that Edmund was wearing. Upon the right breast of his body glove, was the symbol of his Kill-Team. A white crucifix with a black alpha imprinted in the centre and two white swords crossing diagonally behind the cross. He was armed with a combat shotgun that was slung over his back in a sheath, with extra shells in his jacket, two Glock 9mm pistols on shoulder holsters while extra clips hung on his equipment belt, along with several combat knives. He held a Naginta polearm in his right hand.
"Where is he Zhuge?" Asked Edmund, "still in the restaurant?"
Zhuge looked at the front of the only restaurant in town, his mind reaching out to the few people inside.
"No," he answered after several seconds. He expanded his search to his full capability.
Nothing.
"I don't understand," said Zhuge, his eyes widening, "I can't feel him any longer."
Edmund and Sebastian stared at him, stunned, while Paul turned to face him.
"What do you mean you can't sense him any longer?" asked Paul, he had been eyeing someone across the street that had been staring at them from the shadows and his hands had slipped into his coat, where he had slowly produced one of his pairs of berettas.
"Something's blocking his position," explained Zhuge, hurriedly, "he's somewhere that's blocking the psychic beacon that I put on him."
"Then what the Hell are we supposed to do now?" said Edmund, angrily.
*****
"Let's kill them," said Riana, staring at the oblivious Inquisitors from the top of the hill, Brooklyn was competing for the Black Sun in, through a pair of very powerful binoculars.
"Agreed," said Furcifer, rubbing his beard thoughtfully beside her, "but how?"
"May I call up the legions of the undead?" Asked Rincewald, hopefully.
Riana and Furcifer stared at him, as if he'd gone daft.
"What legions of the undead?" Asked Furcifer, "exactly how many people are in this dump's graveyard that could be used as zombies?"
Rincewald thought for a moment before replying, "Twenty-three?"
"And that's a legion in your books?" Snapped Riana. She turned to face Furcifer. "Let me go down there and kill them."
"No," said Furcifer, a horrible grin forming across his lips, "I have a much, much better idea that I would rather use."
He strode over to Rincewald's two assistants and smiled.
"I shall need a little.sustenance beforehand though."
Before either of them could react, Furcifer was upon them, grabbing them by the throats and snapping their necks in a grip, far stronger than any human was. Fuzzy jumped from the blonde's hands, as Furcifer let go of their broken necks and grabbed their faces instead, making sure his palms covered their open mouths.
He smiled cruelly, as he felt their souls trying to escape their corpses. The whites of his eyes changed to black while his dark green irises remained the same colour.
He reached out for them. He caught them.
He fed off them before they could be judged. Draining their essence, their memories, personalities, everything that was them, was absorbed by Furcifer.
He let out a moan of ecstasy, as he dropped the two useless bodies.
Riana smiled while Rincewald started shaking with rage.
"Just what the Hell do you think you're doing?" He roared, striding towards Furcifer, "do you have any fucking idea how much trouble I had to go through to get my hands on them?"
"Should I care?" Asked Furcifer in an absent-minded manner, as he brushed past the infuriated Necromancer and walked up to where Riana stood, looking out over the town.
He looked at her impatiently.
"Stand aside woman. This won't take long."
Riana complied, as Furcifer took her position and spread his arms out. He smiled cruelly, as his body became surrounded in a dark aura, as black as his hair and eyes.
He began to chant in the Daemon's tongue.
*****
Brooklyn tried to scream, but the flames burned his lungs out, as soon as he opened his mouth.
~Not so confident now are we?~
He staggered across the room, his entire body enveloped in black flames.
His instincts told him to let go of the staff. But he wouldn't.
He knew without asking that this was his only chance.
The pain was indescribable.
He could feel his skin boiling, the inside of his lungs were aflame.
But he couldn't black out.
It wouldn't let him.
"F-f-f-f-f-fuck!"
~Indeed. ~
*****
Alexander Stein read the paper, as his two daughters, Lela and Sara played with some dolls in front of the television. His wife, Alisa was currently in the kitchen, preparing dinner for her family.
He was first.
Alexander suddenly felt something odd, a presence of some form inside the house, something unnatural.
He opened his mouth to ask Alisa if she could feel something odd as well.
But he was not quick enough.
Furcifer seized him, battering down his free will, crushing it into nothing. Alexander tried to scream, but no sound emerged from his lips.
Nor would it ever again.
A tenth of a second later, his daughters and then his wife's wills were crushed.
And then their neighbours, then their neighbours, and so on and so forth.
In barely two minutes, Sudeny had become a village of puppets.
*****
"I would have tried to just try and seize the Inquisitors' minds," explained Furcifer to Riana and Rincewald, "But they're trained to resist this sort of thing."
He grinned, "besides, this is much more fun."
*****
Zhuge's eyes widened, his legs gave out and he collapsed to the ground.
Something was happening.
"Oh my God," he muttered.
"Inquisitor!"
"Zhuge!"
Sebastian and Edmund rushed to help him up while Paul twirled around. Berettas out.
There were people walking out of shops, the restaurant, the church, the laundry, some were even coming out of the town hall.
"What the Hell's going on?" Asked the Italian, nervously.
Almost fifty people were walking towards the Inquisitors, their faces blank, their eyes staring outwards, as if in a daze. They had almost surrounded them when one; a girl aged around fifteen, walked up a little closer than the others did.
"Hello Inquisitors," she said in a middle-aged male's voice, "I'm afraid you're not welcome here. I suggest you all leave while you still can."
Sebastian yelled out, calling the rest of his Kill-Team. The back doors of the truck burst open and the five other members of his Kill-Team, all gargoyles, jumped out and rushed up to them.
Edmund was desperately talking to Zhuge, trying to get a response out his old friend. But he was just staring out into space in horror.
Paul never took his eyes off the girl.
"Who are you?" He asked, venomously, keeping her covered with his pistols.
"My name does not matter," replied the possessed girl. "What does matter is that I cannot and will not allow you to interfere with the Anointed One's gathering of weapons. Leave now or die."
Zhuge appeared to be recovering from the psychic shockwave by now. He rose a little unsteadily to his feet with Edmund giving him support. He walked over to beside Paul.
"We cannot leave," he said firmly. "You are evil incarnate and must be destroyed. Both you and the Anointed."
"Ha!" Said the puppet. "Much easier said than done Inquisitor." The puppet smiled at him, cruelly. "But how far are you prepared to go to stop us?"
As one of the people turned meat puppets began to advance towards the Inquisitors and the Kill-Team.
"Zhuge!" yelled Paul. "What do we do now?"
Zhuge looked helplessly from his group to the puppets coming towards them.
Quite a lot of them were brandishing knives. The ones from the restaurant were holding cleavers.
Sebastian wrenched the shotgun from his back, preparing it, as the rest of his team armed their own weapons, while muttering prayers of accuracy and fortitude.
"Your orders Inquisitor?" He yelled when he was certain his team were ready.
The puppets were quite close now.
"Zhuge!" Yelled Edmund. "Zhuge!"
Zhuge stared at the advancing crowd.
There were six billion people on Earth. These were perhaps fifty.
What did fifty lives matter in the quest to save six billion?
Zhuge shook his head ruefully.
But they did matter. They were innocent. They had nothing to do with this.
He couldn't have them slaughtered just because some psycho had arrived in town, intent on getting his claws on a weapon of mass destruction.
Could he?
"Zhuge!"
Perhaps he could try and wrestle the evil influence out of these people?
"Inquisitor!"
No. He was kidding himself.
"Zhuge!"
Whoever was doing this was way over his head.
"For the love of God Inquisitor, tell us your orders!"
No. There really was only one way.
"God forgive us," muttered Inquisitor Zhuge Liang, as he gave the go ahead to the Kill-Team, as he drew his own Uzi's and began firing into the advancing crowd.
The sounds of screams, gunshots and the roar of a minigun filled the street, as the flames from a flame-thrower lighted it up.
It lasted barely a minute.
*****
"Well that went well," said Riana, sarcasm dripping from her silky voice.
"Patience woman," said Furcifer without turning to face her. His arms were outstretched towards the town below him. "There is plenty of cannon-fodder down there."
*****
Brooklyn fell to his knees; the black flames rising to an even higher degree of pain.
He shut his eyes.
The pain. It was a distraction. He had to shut it out if he hoped to succeed.
~Ah! Still thinking? Very commendable! Obviously I'm not hot enough. ~
Brooklyn threw his head back and screamed silently, as the flesh on his hands began to melt.
~I love being me. ~
The conscience hanging around Brooklyn's neck suddenly began to glow.
Brooklyn's eyes opened, twin balls of pale blue flame.
He saw Demona, standing before him. Laughing at him.
He cursed her for being the cause of all his pain.
The image of Demona suddenly changed to that of Oberon.
He was smiling at him triumphantly.
"What's the matter little gargoyle?" He asked, mockingly, "is it that you've finally realised you're a failure?" Oberon laughed at him.
Brooklyn felt the rage inside of him, boiling up.
The image changed again, this time to someone he had practically worshipped once.
Goliath.
The huge lavender gargoyle stood before him, disgust painted all over his face.
"To think I actually picked you, as my second," he said, "you're pathetic. Your life was not worth all those times I had to save it."
He turned his back on Brooklyn. "You are nothing compared to Demona. You hear me you miserable little shit? Nothing!"
Brooklyn shut his eyes again, boiling hot tears of rage forming in his eyes.
Goliath was wrong. He was something. Something far greater than that slow- witted fool could imagine.
His face contracted into a snarl. He couldn't feel the pain any longer.
He'd show them. He'd show them just what he was capable of.
And then he'd have his revenge on all of them.
A flicker of pale blue light began to surround his body, shielding it from the flames. Within minutes it had grown to the same level of the black flames, shielding him completely from them.
His lungs tasted air again.
~By the Black Throne! ~
"I.WILL.NOT.BE.STOPPED.BY.THE.LIKES.OF.YOU!"
*****
They were damned.
He was damned.
Zhuge and the others strode through the town, the rain and the wind battering them.
They had lost their truck.
A puppet had done a kamikaze run at it with a bus.
One of the Kill-Team, Monica, had been killed in the explosion after one of the fuel tanks had ignited, from her flame-thrower.
Sebastian had shot her in the head to stop her suffering.
The five remaining members had all been injured with light burns and cuts from flying pieces of metal mostly.
Edmund was taking point with Martin and Brigid, twenty meters ahead of the rest of the group.
Brigid was a female gargoyle that had originally been recruited in county Cork in the Republic of Ireland. She was the only member of the Kill-Team who hadn't been born and raised in the Sanctums of the Vatican. She had long black hair and jade green eyes. She had a small nose, a strong chin and a tiny pair of "devil" like horns protruding from her forehead. Her skin was olive-green like Lexington's. She was dressed in the same attire, as the rest of her team and was armed with a bastard sword that was slung over her back, a sniper variant of the M-16 assault rifle, a Desert Eagle pistol and a pair of Sai daggers.
Martin, her mate for seven years now, was enormous. He had roughly the same build as Goliath. He had a small beak, webbed ears, sea-green eyes, a bald scalp and jet-black skin. He carried a square shaped titanium shield, which currently hung on his belt alongside his electro-war hammer, which was much bigger and more finely made in the Vatican War Smiths, than any Quarryman could hope to wield. A standard issue berretta 9mm hung on his belt. He held a belt fed mini-gun in his hands, with almost twenty thousand rounds attached to his back in a carrying case. He had used over half of his ammunition, disposing of almost a hundred people and two buses that had tried to ram the party.
They were slowly headed to where Zhuge had believed the source of the psychic power, which was turning the people of this town into mindless puppets, was located.
Behind them in the main group, Zhuge was having a crisis of conscience.
He had ordered the killing of innocent people, so that he could save many more.
Men, women, old people.
Children.
He closed his eyes and shook his head.
Children.
It had been necessary, as had the deaths of all the other people who had charged them mindlessly, mouths wide open, screaming and waving whatever weapons they could find.
"Inquisitor?"
Zhuge opened his eyes and looked to see Sebastian.
"Yes?" he replied tiredly.
Sebastian looked haggard; he had a large gash across his right cheek that was still bleeding. Most of his long hair had been singed when their truck had been taken out. His right arm had third degree burns across it that he didn't seem to notice.
"We're running low on ammunition."
"Damn," said Zhuge, he looked around at the group. Most of them were taking out back-up weapons. Sebastian was holding his Naginta in both hands and had one and a half, full clips for his Glocks, while Paul reported that he only had three full clips left for his brace of pistols.
He looked to the two other members of the Kill-Team, Ezekiel and Catherine.
Ezekiel was around human height, with burgundy skin, elf like ears, chestnut coloured eyes, a small beard on his chin that was light brown like his short crop of hair and a hawk like nose. Attached to the hips of his body glove, was a pair of sawn-off elephant shotguns, roughly about a third of the normal length of one of the enormous rifles. He only had a dozen shells left. He was also equipped with a .45 Magnum revolver, which had run out of ammunition. Three throwing axes, which were attached to his belt (he originally had six, but had lost three in the chaotic fighting), a garrotte, a Boa knife and was holding a long sword in his hands.
Catherine's only gun, an MP-5, was out of ammunition and had been dumped already. She preferred close combat to ranged fighting anyway. She was equipped with a dozen or so knives of various sizes, a pair of spiked brass knuckles, an enormous Kukri, and a pair of matching single edged short swords that she was currently holding. She had long black hair, sky-blue eyes, bone coloured skin, a hooked nose, sharp chin, elfish ears and a single horn that jutted back over her hair from the centre of her forehead.
She looked at Zhuge, sympathetically.
"There was nothing you could do for them Inquisitor. If we don't reach the Arch Heretic before he gets the weapon hidden here.all is lost."
Zhuge nodded to her, appreciatively, "thank you Catherine. But I truly believe we are damned for this."
*****
"They're getting awfully close," said Rincewald, worriedly. His staff was lying on a picnic table while he held Fuzzy in one hand while stroking him with the other.
"Shut up," replied Furcifer. "I'm busy."
"Yes do shut up Rincewald," joined Riana. "I really can't stand listening to that voice of yours."
"Fuck you PMS girl!"
"Oh! Go shave your eyebrows fatty!"
"Prostitute!"
"Stiff Shagger!"
"SILENCE!"
Riana and Rincewald looked nervously in Furcifer's direction. He had stopped looking out over the town and was staring at them with murder in his eyes.
"You two do know that that kind of behaviour would be considered outrageous in a nursery?" He asked calmly enough, although his black eyes were still screaming bloody murder. "Now both of you behave while I finish these unenlightened fools off."
"How come you get to have all the fun?" Asked Riana, bitterly.
"Because I'm your superior," replied Furcifer, smugly.
Riana responded by flipping Furcifer off. He frowned at her before returning his attention back to the trap that he claimed he was setting up.
*****
It roared at him, the entire room rippling, as strands of black flame and pale blue light began flaring off in random directions.
Walls began to pulsate, as if they were breathing while faces of people and gargoyles began to emerge from others, writhing and screaming in the throws of the damned.
It was deafening.
The altar began to shudder violently, cracks appearing along the smooth obsidian surface before it exploded altogether, chunks the size of fists flying through the air before stopping mid-flight, caught by some unseen grasp.
The floor began to ripple, as if it were liquid, the gold emblem of the Dark Prince, the huge Pentecostal Star covering the floor, began to twist and turn of it's own accord, as if it were some living two dimensional creature.
The sky scene on the ceiling had become chaotic. The stars were moving at random, colliding and exploding, while other went supernova and still more collapsed upon themselves to form black holes.
It struck out at him in desperation, a tendril of black flames rising, as if a snake about to strike at his head.
As it moved to strike, it was struck out of existence by a tendril of pale blue light.
Over the screams came the echo of maniacal laughter.
"Not so confident now are we?" Screamed Brooklyn, a terrible grin on his face.
~YOU SHALL NOT HAVE DOMINION OVER ME GARGOYLE! ~
"Oh yes I will!" Replied Brooklyn; he was still on his knees, the Black Sun held above him in both hands. The pale blue light emanating from his body had almost totally enveloped the staff. The Lack of Conscience around his neck was glowing too, the amber light adding to the pale blue's assault upon the black flames.
~You can't keep this up forever Gargoyle! ~
Brooklyn frowned.
The Daemon was right of course. He couldn't keep this up much longer. His outburst of power had come from his intense hatred of the people who had ruined his life. His body couldn't keep running on that. The amount of willpower that he was using to force the daemon onto the defensive was weakening very quickly.
In a few more minutes, he would be burning again.
~Just let me go, ~ said the Daemon, its tone becoming softer. ~Your power is impressive. But you just don't have the strength to carry on. Give up and become my slave. ~
"NEVER!" Screamed Brooklyn. "You shall call me Master before this is over Daemon!"
~Foolish creature! I gave you a chance! ~ Yelled the Daemon, redoubling it's efforts.
The black flames burst from the staff with greater strength than before, forcing the blue and amber lights back from it, as Brooklyn swore.
He snarled viciously.
This had to end now.
Calling up any reserves of strength he had, Brooklyn tried to strengthen his shield while using the Conscience to delve into the pages of the Malus Codicium, to learn the Daemon's true name before his defences collapsed entirely.
The Daemon hissed, as it realised what he was doing and attacked even harder.
~I shall not lose! ~
*****
Zhuge swore in his home tongue, as he thrust his sword through an old woman's face.
A hissing noise came from inside her head, as he withdrew his weapon and twirled around to block a swipe from a middle-aged man with a cleaver. He then sliced the man's head clean off, a small fountain of blood erupting from the wound and spraying Zhuge in the face.
"Fuck!" He screamed in a brief reprieve.
They had been ambushed, as they had been coming up the road.
Hordes of people, probably what little was left of the town's population, had swept down upon them from a pair of hills on each side of the road leading to the hill where the psychic power was emanating from.
Martin and Brigid had mowed down almost the entire left flank of the attack before they had run out of ammunition and had switched to close combat weapons.
He could see Martin over the chaos. Spinning, blocking attacks with his shield before bringing his war hammer, a bright blue electrical flame covering the head, down onto peoples' heads, often detonating them from the power of the blow. As a result, he was slick with blood, gore, bone and brain fragments.
Headshots. They were the only way to stop the blood-frenzied puppets. They had learned this the hard way. Zhuge had almost emptied an entire clip from his Uzi into that girl's chest. But she had still come at him, screaming and waving a knife in her hands. She had only dropped when he had landed a head shot in.
He parried an axe blow from a man in his fifties and in one fluid motion, drew a dagger from his belt, spun around his latest attacker and buried the point of it into the back of the man's head. He wrenched it out, as the corpse was going into spasms and hurled the dagger wildly into a group of puppets rushing towards him. The blade buried itself into a young girl's forehead; her body went rigid, as it collapsed on the ground.
*****
Ezekiel roared in anger, as he hurled his last throwing axe at an oncoming puppet (Mid thirties, blonde hair, nice ass by human standards), which dropped, as the blade almost went through her head from the speed it was travelling at.
A boy in his early twenties stabbed him in the gut with a butcher knife. Ezekiel roared in agony, as he threw a backhand slap and sent his assailant flying into the tumult. He grabbed the handle of the knife in his left hand, as he maimed a pregnant woman with an axe, slicing her hands off and then decapitating her with his sword in his right hand. Gritting his teeth, he pulled the knife from his belly, as three puppets, all in their teens charged him.
The first crumpled to the ground, as a butcher knife connected with his head, the second got the top half of her head removed from an upward slash with the sword while the third was cleaved in half at the waist from the follow-up.
Ezekiel shivered in disgust, as the top half of the teen crawled along the ground with its one remaining arm to try and bite him in the ankle.
He stamped on its head until it stopped moving.
He heard a scream and spun around just in time to see Catherine being stabbed in the back by a puppet wearing a priest's outfit with a huge knife.
"NO!" Screamed the burgundy gargoyle, rushing through the melee, slashing blindly left and right, his entire uniform glistening with blood and gore.
The puppet-priest continued stabbing the fallen Catherine, even though she wasn't moving any longer.
Ezekiel screamed at the top of his voice, as he wrenched one of his sawn- off elephant guns from its holster. He took careful aim while running.
The puppet-priest looked up just in time to see Ezekiel pull the trigger.
Its head was liquefied, as one of the two barrels let out a deafening boom, the force of the recoil almost breaking the gargoyle's wrist.
Ezekiel dropped on his knees beside Catherine, tears clouding his vision. He turned her around in his arms, dropping his sword and gun, his lip quivering, as he stared into her now peaceful face. He looked into her open eyes, already glazing over, for several seconds before he gently closed them and kissed her lightly on the lips.
"I love you," he whispered into her ear.
His hands began to shake, as he laid her down gently on the ground and reached for her swords.
A second later he was tearing through the chaotic ranks of puppets, screaming Catherine's name at the top of his voice, as he killed one and then another and then another with her swords.
*****
Sebastian spun the Naginta above his head, howling the Catechism of Protection, before twisting it into a downward arc, the curved blade at the end of the short wooden pole splitting a puppet in two, spraying him with blood. His dark grey hair had turned a deep red from the amount of blood that he had sprayed all over him.
He saw a dozen puppets several meters away rushing towards him, waving knives, axes and other improvised weapons.
He drew his pistol in his right hand. It only had eight bullets left.
He picked his shots carefully, nailing eight of them with headshots, three of them right between the eyes, before throwing away the now useless gun and twirling his Naginta in his hands and decapitating the first of the remaining four that rushed him. The other three screamed at him at the top of their lungs, as they all slashed at him, two with axes, missed him while the third, wielding a knife, stabbed him in the thigh. Sebastian swore mid- prayer and head-butted the one who stabbed him, sending the puppet's nose through its face, before wrenching the knife out of his leg and throwing it at one of his two remaining attackers, the blade going through an eye and beyond in one of the puppet's heads. It crumbled to the ground silently.
Sebastian reached for a throwing knife in his belt when a female puppet, in her mid-forties, stabbed him in the back with a knife. Sebastian howled in pain as he reached over his head and grabbed the puppet by its dress and hurled it over his head, sending it crashing into the puppet in front of him. He brought his hand around to try and pull the knife from his back when another group of puppets, seven this time, attacked him.
They all piled on top of him, bringing him to the ground by weight of numbers. Sebastian began kicking them off wildly. His Naginta had been knocked out of his hand and he was desperately clawing for one of the knives he had on his belt when he noticed the point of the knife he had been stabbed in the back with was now protruding from his stomach. He had been impaled without even realising it.
It was only then did he realise just how tired that he was feeling. He tried to shake the feeling off, but he just couldn't.
He noticed one of the puppets had actually grabbed his own Naginta and was raising it above their head, bladed end pointing down towards his chest.
The puppet brought the short spear down, but Sebastian refused to die that easily. The gargoyle's arms shot up and grabbed the spear just at where the blade ended, holding it in place.
He smiled triumphantly up at the desperate puppet, as he began to push the bladed tip away from his chest.
He was so focused on this that he didn't notice the puppet with the knife moving to slit his throat until it was too late to react.
His last thought was just how unfair it was.
*****
Paul Rossi gunned another puppet down before discarding his second last berretta, muttering any prayers he could think of, as he drew his last pistol in his left hand while he held one of his tomahawk war axes in his right.
A pair of puppets rushed him. He brought them both down with headshots.
Another came at him, waving what looked like an antique sword. He dodged the clumsy swipe and split his assailant's head open with his axe, cursing himself for not thinking of bringing some grenades.
There was a high-pitched scream behind him. He spun around quickly and brought his pistol to bear on.
.A child, a little girl, roughly nine or ten, she had adorable blonde locks in her hair and even glazed over, her green eyes were enchanting. She just stood there staring at him, mouth wide open, and eyes blank. He felt his pistol hand begin to shake violently.
He couldn't do it. God in Heaven! Help him! He couldn't shoot a child, even a possessed one. It was still a child. He couldn't make a callous decision like this.
Fortunately he wouldn't have to.
By some very cruel twist of fate, the girl's sister, her younger by four years, stabbed the big Italian in the back of the head, as he wrestled with his conscience, with her dad's biggest screwdriver.
Paul Rossi's face contorted in pain for the briefest second, before he fell forward on the ground, the two girls stabbing the back of his head repeatedly until Inquisitor Edmund Burke saw this and put a bullet through both their heads while screaming Paul's name.
*****
"PAUL!"
Paul was stabbed.
He fell.
He died.
Burke put a bullet through each of the girls' heads with one of his revolvers before another wave of puppets tried to rush him.
He downed three of them with his pistol before it ran out of bullets. Swearing, he threw it away, drawing a pair of throwing knives and killing two more puppets before drawing his cavalry sabre and charging half a dozen of them while roaring a battle cry.
The first one that came at him got its head removed in a clean swipe. The next got its jaw dislodged, as Burke punched it, as hard as he could, with the hand-guard of his sword. He sliced its head off as it fell on its knees.
The other four tried pounce on top of him in an attempt to bring him to the ground. Burke did a diving roll at their feet, sending the four of them to the floor while he jumped to his feet and ran to Rossi's corpse.
He reached down and grabbed his friend's berretta, spun around and killed the four puppets as they were rising with clean headshots.
He looked around at the carnage, taking huge gasps of air.
The puppets had been reduced in number considerably.
There was barely thirty or forty now.
Easy Peasy Lemon Squeazy.
He slumped forward onto his knees, mentally and physically shattered. He couldn't do this; he just didn't have the strength any longer.
A pair of puppets ran at him, both brandishing screwdrivers.
He was too tired to try and fight them off so he just shot the pair, not really caring that he was using up bullets that might be needed later if actually survived this mess.
*****
Martin swore as a puppet stabbed him in the shoulder with a knife. He kicked it hard in the gut, sending it flying across the road.
It landed hard on its back and when it tried to rise. Inquisitor Burke shot it in the head, at some distance. He was kneeling on the ground and didn't look very well.
He could see Ezekiel rushing towards the Englishman to see if he was okay.
"MARTIN!"
Martin looked around just in time to see a puppet lunge at him with an axe. He sidestepped the attack easily and hit his assailant in the back of the head with his war hammer. The back of the puppet's head (in this case a middle-aged woman) caved in as if it were a watermelon, the puppet going stiff for a brief second before dying.
"Thanks!" he yelled to Brigid.
His mate nodded to him before most of the remaining puppets rushed her, dragging her to the ground and stabbing her to death.
It happened within a few seconds.
So quickly Brigid barely had a chance to scream.
Martin screamed though. He screamed his wife's name over and over again, as he wrenched the knife from his shoulder and threw himself at the puppets, almost twenty of them and began tearing his way through them to reach her.
He noticed Ezekiel out of the corner of his eye, running to help with Catherine's swords in his hands.
He looked terrible.
*****
Zhuge parried a blow with his sword and punched the puppet that was trying skewer him with a kebab stick. It stumbled back but came at him again. He rolled to the left of its thrust and came up, his sword cutting through the air in an upward thrust of his own. The edge of his Tai-Chi sword stabbed into the puppet's temple, a hissing sound came from its lips before it fell to the ground, dead.
Another came at him with an axe; he rolled backwards and evaded the clumsy attack. He got to his feet quickly and slid his sword though a middle-aged man's head.
It collapsed to the ground and Zhuge twirled around, panting like a dog to face his next opponent.
But none came.
They had won, in a manner of speaking.
Bodies. Everywhere!
Some lying in piles, others out on their own. The ground was littered with body parts. Heads, both whole and partial, hands, arms and fingers.
The stench of death was incredible.
Zhuge's sword hung limply in his right hand, he'd lost his cloak, where and when, he just couldn't remember at the moment.
He saw Burke on his knees several feet away, he was breathing heavily and looked awful. He was red from head to toe in other peoples' blood, his sword and one of Paul's pistols in his hands hung at his sides. His body glove was torn in a dozen places.
Zhuge staggered over to his friend, almost slipping on some gore, as he did so. He looked down at the ground and felt like he was going to throw up. The tarmac road was slippery with blood, almost ankle deep in parts, despite the heavy rain.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered to no one in particular.
He reached Edmund and fell to his knees beside him.
"Edmund?"
Burke didn't answer; he just stared at the ground.
"Edmund? Are you alright?"
"Hell."
Zhuge frowned. "What?"
"I said Hell Zhuge," whispered Edmund. "You.me.we're in Hell Zhuge. If not in Hell.then we'll be there soon."
Burke shut his eyes, as tears began to form.
"Oh God Almighty.what the fuck have we done?" He sobbed.
"We have done our job Inquisitor," a voice spoke from behind them. Zhuge and Edmund turned their heads to see Ezekiel standing near-by.
His left eye had been torn out by a slash from an axe and blood was gushing from the socket. The stab wound in his belly was still bleeding. He was swaying slightly, as he stood before them. His arms were hanging limply at his sides, Catherine's swords dangling in his hands.
Edmund and Zhuge stared at him in shock.
How the Hell was he still standing?
"We did our job Inquisitor," Ezekiel repeated. "And now.we have to finish this.we.we.we must stop that bastard from getting his claws on whatever it is here that he wants so badly that he's willing to let an entire town get wiped out."
"He's right," said Martin tiredly. He was on his knees, roughly ten meters away from the rest of the group, cradling Brigid in his arms. He stroked her hair gently with his right hand. It looked like he had been crying. "She can't die in vain. she won't die in vain.I.I won't let that happen."
He slowly rose to his feet, reaching for his hammer and shield. "If you back out now, then all this has been for nothing. The lives of my friends, the lives of these people, the life of.my.my wife. They would all have been lost in vain." He stood up, swaying from exhaustion and blood loss, and stared at them, his face hardening. "I'm going.if you don't come with me.then I hope you all rot in Hell." With that, he turned to head up the road.
"Martin!" yelled Zhuge. The gargoyle turned to face the Chinese Inquisitor. Zhuge was forcing himself onto his feet, shrugging off the assistance Ezekiel tried to offer. "Give us a few minutes to rest.then we'll be on our way again."
Martin nodded and sat down quietly, while Zhuge and Ezekiel tried to help Edmund to his feet.
*****
He could hear thunder, as a gale swept through the room, almost drowning out the sounds of the faces on the wall screaming.
"Nearly there," he whispered to himself. The Codicium knew the Daemon's name. He just had to drag it out of it.
Its hold on the knowledge he sought was almost gone. Whittling away bit by bit as forced his will upon it.
~YOU WON'T TAKE ME! ~ Roared the Daemon.
Brooklyn gritted his teeth. The pale blue shield surrounding him was growing thinner by the second under the relentless assault by the black flames.
It was just a matter of time now.
He focused more on the Codicium. He was so close now.
A few more seconds.
But his shield finally collapsed.
Brooklyn sucked in a huge lung full of air just before the flames engulfed him again, shutting his eyes tight and trying to shut out the agony he felt again.
~You can't win gargoyle, ~ said the staff triumphantly, ~serve me. Become my slave. Worship me as the humans do their god. ~
Brooklyn ignored it, ignored the pain, his undivided attention upon the Codicium that the Conscience was leading him through.
He searched, and searched.
And found what he had been looking for.
~Gargoyle? ~
Brooklyn's eyes shot open, blazing with pale blue light. The pain had vanished.
~Uh Oh. ~
Brooklyn threw his head back, raising the Black Sun Staff in both his hands above his head.
"THZUL'GZHU'VSRA'KOTLLZ!"
The Daemon howled at him in blind rage. The black flames receded back into the staff, as the room began to return to normal, the chunks of the altar moved from where they hung mid-air, back together in the centre of the room. The faces on the walls vanished as the winds died down and the night sky above returned to normalcy.
Brooklyn looked down at his body.
It was untouched.
The flames were an illusion.
"Makes sense," he said to himself. "What's the point in flambéing every potential candidate for the weapons?"
He smiled to himself before yawning. Despite the illusion, he was exhausted. He swayed slightly.
~Are you tired.Master? ~ Asked the Daemon.
"Very."
~Then rest. There is nothing to fear from me any longer. You are the Anointed, the Chosen of the Dark Prince. I cannot hurt you. ~
Brooklyn nodded his thanks and slumped onto his side, asleep before his head even hit the floor.
*****
"Well I must say you did a fantastic job!" yelled Rincewald, his voice laden with sarcasm. "Spiffing in fact!"
"Shut your trap Necromancer!" replied Furcifer. "Talk to me like that again and I'll rip you stiff shagging balls off! You hear me?"
Riana clapped her hands in excitement. "My turn!" she yelled happily.
"It is most certainly not," said Rincewald. "This is my town. So I get to go now that Mr. I'm great cause I've got a big black coat is finished."
Furcifer eyed both of them dangerously. "Both of you shut up right now. I'm not finished just yet."
"Oh yes you are," said a voice at the end of the picnic area.
The three turned and saw the survivors of the Kill-Team, Martin and Ezekiel, and Inquisitors Burke and Liang.
None looked particularly happy.
Burke was covering the three of them with Paul's berretta, while Ezekiel pointed one of his sawn-off elephant shotguns at them.
"Holy Inquisition," said Zhuge slowly, his Tai-Chi sword firmly in his hands. "Surrender yourselves or die."
"Oh Balls," said Rincewald, he looked over to where his staff was lying on one of the picnic tables. "Shit."
Riana smiled sadistically, as she rubbed her hands together. "I knew I was going to ice something today!"
"Rincewald," said Furcifer slowly, as he raised his hands above him.
The Necromancer turned his head in Furcifer's direction. "Yes?"
Furcifer grinned horribly, "It's still my turn."
Furcifer suddenly threw out a backhand swipe at the Necromancer, hitting him hard in the gut, the force of the blow sending Rincewald high in the air and crashing through several bushes, as he landed on the opposite end of the picnic area. Almost twenty meters away.
Burke began firing at Furcifer before Rincewald was even half way over the first picnic table.
Furcifer rolled below the few bullets Burke had left, the Englishman swearing wildly and drawing his sword, as Furcifer came up and ran at him.
Ezekiel fired at Riana with both barrels of his shotgun, the recoil nearly fracturing his wrist, he tossed the gun aside as Riana rolled backwards, below the two rounds that blew out a huge chunk of the wall of sediment behind her.
Cackling madly she pulled out her whip and kukri, taunting the burgundy gargoyle before narrowly dodging a thrust by Zhuge. She blocked a follow-up slash by him with her kukri and kicked him hard in the right knee.
She smiled as she heard the bones crack and the knee joint going out of place while Zhuge screamed in pain and collapsed onto his side.
She moved to slit his throat, but was sent flying when Ezekiel rammed into her in a shoulder charge.
She rolled with the fall and came up to see the burgundy-coloured gargoyle on one knee, checking the Inquisitor.
Without even thinking she hurled her kukri knife at him while he wasn't looking. She let out a sigh of delight when the blade buried itself into his head, just behind the right ear.
Ezekiel went rigid, an odd hissing sound coming from his open mouth. Riana grabbed her whip and shot it out at him. It wrapped around his neck and Riana pulled her end in both hands with all her might, dragging the gargoyle over to her across the ground before tearing the dagger out of the side of his head and sitting on his stomach to watch his eye slowly glaze over. After a few seconds of staring into his surprised face, she slit his throat with the kukri in one quick slash, licking her lips, as his blood sprayed out over her face.
She looked over at Inquisitor Liang and smiled.
He'd blacked out.
She turned her attention to where Furcifer was fighting Burke and Martin.
The huge black gargoyle swung his hammer at Furcifer, but he ducked below the swing and sent Martin skidding across the muddy ground from a back hand slap, as Inquisitor Burke slashed at his face, missing by millimetres.
Furcifer laughed and grabbed hold of the blade with his bare hand, grinning evilly at Burke.
His grin was short lived though. The flesh around his hand began to blister and hiss, as if being burned by something.
Furcifer's eyes widened, as he hissed in pain, letting go of the blade and staggering back from the Englishman.
"AGH!!! BLESSED! FUCKING, FUCKING BLESSED!"
"You think that's bad!" screamed Burke, reaching into his sleeveless black leather jacket, pulling out a small vile of water. He flipped the cap open. "TRY SOME OF THIS YOU MURDERING BASTARD!"
He hurled the vile at Furcifer, water spraying all over his face. Furcifer screamed, his voice changing into something unearthly, as he did so. The water burned his face; hissing wildly and making smoke rise from his skin. Furcifer's hands covered his face.
"HOLY WATER! YOU FUCKING ENGLISH CUNT! I'LL TEAR YOUR MOTHER-FUCKING HEAD OFF FOR THIS!"
He screamed even louder when Martin jumped him from behind, bringing his war hammer, its head blazing in electrical fire from the power pack being set to full, crashing into Furcifer's lower back.
Furcifer went rigid for a moment, as he was electrocuted, before spinning around on the balls of feet to face Martin. The gargoyle stared at him dumbly before he tried to take another swing with his hammer, this time trying to bring it down on Furcifer's head.
Furcifer caught the shaft in one hand while shoving his other hand straight through Martin's chest.
For a moment both stood still, staring into each other's eyes, before Martin slowly lowered his head to look at his chest. Furcifer's right hand had broken through his body armour, his jet-black skin, his ribs and his left lung. Martin looked back up at Furcifer. He slowly opened his mouth, as if to say something. Furcifer leaned in closer to hear.
But Martin spat in his face instead.
Swearing a blue streak, Furcifer wrenched Martin's hammer out of his limp hand, bringing the still flaming head onto that of its master's while tearing his right hand, now slick with gore, out of the gargoyle's chest in the same instant.
The top of Martin's head caved in from the force with which Furcifer brought the hammer down. His head detonating the next instant, as the power pack on the hammer blew out, sending his falling corpse into mad spasms as it hit the ground.
Furcifer twirled around just in time to grab Burke's right hand, as the Inquisitor came at him, attempting to cleave his head off.
He crushed his wrist, smiling sadistically, as Burke dropped his sword and screamed in agony.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU?" roared the Englishman. "A FUCKING VAMPIRE? A DAEMON?"
Furcifer smiled.
"None of the above."
And with that, always being a man who kept his promises down to the letter, he tore Burke's head off.
*****
~Master?~
Brooklyn stirred slightly before his eyes slowly opened.
"What is it?" he said, yawning as sat up. The floor felt strangely warm.
~The battle is over. We are the victors,~ replied the daemon.
Brooklyn frowned, "what battle?"
~The battle against the Inquisitors. All have fallen. Furcifer has defeated them.~
"Furcifer? He did it by himself?"
~Well, Riana helped.a little.~
Brooklyn stood up, leaning on the Black Sun and walking over to the altar. His own staff was lying upon it.
He picked it up in his left hand while holding the Black Sun in his right. He still felt exhausted.
Leaning on both, he walked slowly over to the door.
*****
Furcifer stared down at Zhuge Liang. His dark green eyes filled with hate.
"Disgusting humans," he muttered.
He held Riana's Glock 9mm in his left hand.
His handsome face and the palm and fingers of his right hand were very badly burnt.
He emptied an entire clip into Zhuge's face before handing the pistol back to Riana.
"Thank you my dear."
"No problem," replied Riana as she reloaded the pistol.
"Did I miss something?" asked a voice behind them.
Riana and Furcifer turned to see Brooklyn standing at the entranceway to where the Black Sun was kept.
He was swaying slightly and held both his own staff and the Black Sun in his hands.
"Nothing important," said Rincewald while eyeing Furcifer hatefully, "Just a few pests that needed taking care of."
Brooklyn nodded and started to walk forward. He stumbled though and dropped his own staff from his left hand; it clattered to the ground while Brooklyn put both his hands around the Black Sun to hold himself up.
Riana moved over to him and threw his left arm around her shoulder while wrapping her right arm around his waist.
"A little tired?" she asked playfully.
"Learning a Daemon's true name is a lot more difficult than I thought," replied Brooklyn, leaning on her slightly for support. He looked suddenly alarmed and turned to look at Furcifer. "I'm not gonna have to go through all that again to get the other weapons am I?"
Furcifer just smiled and shrugged.
"Come on," said Rincewald suddenly, "let's get you in the van before anyone else shows up."
After they'd put Brooklyn in the only bed in Rincewald's camper van to rest. Rincewald came out again; he appeared to be a little flustered.
"Fuzzy! Fuzzy!"
"What are you doing?" snapped Furcifer. He had been rubbing his burnt face while sitting at one of the picnic tables when the Necromancer had exited the camper.
"You knocked Fuzzy out of my hands when you sent me flying across those picnic tables!" yelled Rincewald, "I didn't have a chance to look for him before!" He looked around the picnic area desperately. "FUZZY!"
"Squeak."
Rincewald twirled around to where the sound had come from, his face lighting up, "Fuzzy!"
The black guinea pig was sitting on one of the picnic tables several meters away from them.
Furcifer frowned. "What's that hanging out of its mouth?"
Rincewald walked up to the table quickly and picked Fuzzy up in both hands. He examined what was hanging out of his familiar's mouth. It was a few inches long, very furry and white with a black tip. It was moving slightly of it's own accord.
"It's a cat's tail," replied Rincewald in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Why, exactly is there a cat's tail hanging out of your guinea-pig's mouth?" Asked Furcifer, as he eyed the rodent in the Necromancer's arms very suspiciously.
"I imagine it's because he ate a kitty," replied Rincewald, before putting the fat guinea pig up to his face and cooing in a voice that would suggest he was trying to entertain a baby, "isn't that right Fuzzy. Yes it is. You're an evil guinea-piggy aren't you?"
"Squeak."
Rincewald suddenly stopped when he noticed the baffled look Furcifer was giving him.
"You are a sick, disgusting, evil, twisted, perverted old man," said Furcifer after a while.
Rincewald frowned at him, "I resent being called old."
Both smiled at each other.
"Are you coming?" Asked Rincewald, as he turned to get in the driver's seat of his camper.
"No," replied Furcifer, as he rose, yawning slightly, "I'm going to get a facial, seduce a few women, nuns probably and then I shall meet up with you again."
"I'll see you in a few days then," said Rincewald, getting into the driver's seat and slamming the door. "Oh, one thing," said the Necromancer suddenly, as he turned the key and the engine revved.
"What is it?" Asked Furcifer.
"Would you mind giving us a bit of a push, would you? It's just the tires tend to get a little stuck in the mud."
Furcifer grumbled something inexplicable under his breath, as he strode around to the back of the camper to give it a push.
As he did so, Rincewald floored the accelerator, spraying mud all over Furcifer as the wheels spun in the mud, before dislodging the camper and sending it speeding along the bloody road down to the town.
"THAT'S FOR MAKING ME MISS THE FUN DICKHEAD!" yelled Rincewald, as he sped away cackling madly.
Furcifer looked down at his ruined clothes, his fists shaking slightly.
"Bastard."
Eight hours later
Dominique Destine looked around at the carnage, her mouth wide open in shock.
"What the fuck happened here?" Yelled Fang, as he looked around at the horde of bodies and flaming wrecks in the town centre.
"I.I don't know," she replied, a little shakily.
This was unbelievable. She hadn't seen carnage on this scale since the Second World War!
Faith wandered around, dressed in a black armoured body glove, a long black leather coat that fell to her knees and heavy black boots. She had her sawn- off shotgun in one hand and an Uzi that Dominique had lent her in the other. A single-edged long sword hung over her back in a scabbard, while she kept four Glock 9mm pistols in holsters on her body glove and her pair of tonfa in her coat.
She knelt down beside one of the corpses and turned it over. An old, wrinkled face with no hair looked up at her. There were two bullet holes in his head.
She heard rapid and very panicked breathing behind her and turned around to see what was the matter.
It was Mal; he was standing, staring at the death all around him and shaking violently. He was hyperventilating.
"He wouldn't do this.he wouldn't do this." he repeated, as if it were a mantra.
He and all the other gargoyles had been turned human by Jezebel to aid them in their search; all were wearing armoured body gloves and attachments while carrying various arms.
"Hey. Take it easy Mal," said Fang kindly, taking his friend by the shoulders. "Look, how about I take you inside and.get you some soda eh?"
"There's so many.so many," said Mal, still staring out at the corpses. He could see ravens and other birds hopping along the ground among the bodies, eating eyeballs and nibbling at pale, cold flesh.
And the smell.
He was sure he was going to throw up any second now.
Fang could see it two. He grabbed Mal's head in his hands and forced his friend's gaze away from all the death.
"Mal! Mal look at me!" Yelled Fang. Mal turned his head and looked at the mutate in the eyes. Fang could see tears forming and felt a pang of guilt for exposing Malibu to this. "Come on. I'll take you back inside the van."
"Why would he do this?" Whimpered Mal as Fang slowly led him back to Demona's armoured bus.
"I don't know," replied Fang. He hugged Mal to his chest, as the clone started crying. "I don't know."
The others looked on in sympathy, as Fang closed the door to the van.
"Poor guy," said Broadway, as he tightened his grip on the war-hammer that Demona had given him.
"I.I guess he's never had to deal with anything like this before," said Lex, sighing. "No one should have to deal with this sort of stuff."
Both he and Broadway had seen their own share of the aftermath of battles while they defended Wyvern.
But, those bodies hadn't been in as many pieces, as some of these were.
"Does Brooklyn carry any guns?" Asked Faith.
"I believe he only took a pair of pistols," said Jezebel. She still wore her usual clothing, despite the fact everyone else was kitted out in body armour of some form.
Faith bent down and picked up a discarded cartridge, one of hundreds that littered the ground.
"This is from an assault rifle," said Faith after a moment's examination. "There's others here that look to be from a minigun, others are used shotgun shells. There are also a lot of 9mm rounds."
She seemed to be in deep thought for a moment.
"And what does all this mean?" Asked Goliath, getting more and more enraged at his former second-in-command by the second.
"I.I think," started Faith, "I think.this was done by my people."
The others stared at her in shock for a moment, taking in this new revelation.
"Your people did this?" Yelled Broadway, as he scanned the bodies littering the street. "I thought you people were supposed to be protecting innocents from this weird shit?"
"We are!" Replied Faith, quickly. "I don't know what happened here, but I know Zhuge must have had a good reason for doing all.this." She looked down at the ground for a moment before adding, "I hope," under her breath.
They advanced quickly to where Dominique and Jezebel said they could feel a great deal of magical backwash.
They encountered a lot more bodies on the way, which were also getting the treatment from various scavengers, crows and ravens mostly. After about ten minutes walking they came upon a dirt road leading to a picnic area that sat on a hill overlooking the town.
None of them had ever seen so many corpses, a lot of them with without heads, or worse, some with only parts of their heads remaining on their bodies.
It was at this point that both Lexington and Broadway threw up and had to head back to the van aswell. Leaving just Goliath, Jezebel, Faith and Dominique to continue up the road.
They found the bodies of Catherine, Brigid, Sebastian and Paul a little further on.
Goliath tried to ask Faith who these gargoyles were, but stopped when he saw that this visibly shook her.
He decided he'd ask her later.
They eventually reached the top of the hill and the picnic area, finding six more bodies. Four of which Faith recognised.
She didn't say anything. She just stood there, staring at them. She was shaking slightly and Goliath led her away somewhere where she could be alone for a few minutes.
"Well," said Jezebel after they'd gone. "I think we're screwed at this point."
She looked in Dominique's direction to seek a reply and frowned when she saw what she was doing.
She was kneeling down near a wall of natural sedimentary rock that had a few bullet holes in it. Her hands were scraping mud off something long and shiny on the ground.
"What is that?" asked the old lady, coming over quickly to help.
After a few seconds, they uncovered Brooklyn's staff.
"Why would he leave his staff behind?" Asked Jezebel, as Dominique picked the magnificent staff out of the wet mud.
"Perhaps he doesn't think he needs it anymore," replied Dominique.
"In that case.we really are screwed."
"Not quite."
Jezebel eyed the red head warily. "What are you talking about Demona? We were too late to stop him getting whatever the Hell was hidden around here. We don't know where the rest of these weapons are. What can we possibly do?"
Dominique closed her eyes slowly, she suddenly looked very tired.
"There is one thing old woman," she said, her voice heavy, as she dragged up ancient memories while picking the staff up in both hands and examining it.
It was perfect.
"There is.one thing left.that I can try."
Beyond Time and Space
Zhuge stirred, his eyes fluttering open, as he sat up and quickly took in his surroundings.
There was sand everywhere.
He looked up at the sky. There was no sun or moon, or any clouds or stars for that matter. The sky was a deep shade of purple.
"Where am I?" He asked no one in particular.
THE DESERT, replied a voice that sounded like slabs of granite hitting each other.
Zhuge spun about in all directions, looking for the owner of the very strange voice.
A figure stood several meters from him. It stood at seven foot and was dressed completely in black robes. It carried a scythe.
"I take it that your Death?" Asked Zhuge.
YOU ARE CORRECT.
"I guess that means I'm dead?"
ONCE AGAIN YOU ARE CORRECT.
Zhuge nodded and looked around at the endless stretches of sand all around him.
"Is this Hell?"
NO.
"Heaven?"
NO.
"Ah.Purgatory."
IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING.
"What am I supposed to do here?"
WALK.
"Why?"
BECAUSE JUDGEMENT AWAITS YOU AT THE END.
"Will I meet old friends along the way?"
Death smiled at him. MAYBE.
Zhuge looked at Death, suspiciously. "What about my mission? Will he be stopped?"
IT'S TOO SOON TO TELL I'M AFRAID INQUISITOR. HAVE FAITH. WHAT MUST BE WILL BE.
Zhuge looked over the vast expanses of sand. A tiny smile spread across his lips.
"I have always had faith my friend," he said after a moment. "Always."
He nodded to the figure in black before picking a direction at random and heading off at a brisk walk, smiling when he realised that he didn't have to walk with his limp anymore.
"What must be will be," he said to himself. He wasn't too sure what was going to happen, but something told him that it would turn out all right in the end.
Death watched Inquisitor Zhuge Liang go until he was a tiny silhouette.
"And when exactly will I be allowed to face my judgement?" Asked a bitter voice with a strong Scottish accent.
Death turned to face a man who hadn't been there a few seconds ago. He appeared to be in his mid fifties, dressed in black and with grey hair, a beard and a very large frown.
IF THERE IS ONE THING I HAVE LEARNED OVER THE AGES YOUR MAJESTY, said Death.
IT IS PATIENCE. NOW WOULD YOU LIKE A TEACAKE?
The other figure in black crossed his arms and eyed Death impatiently.
"No thank you."
ARE YOU SURE? Asked Death, smiling. THERE'RE TO DIE FOR.
Macbeth growled something under his breath.
"Why won't you let me go? I'd like to be with my family!" he yelled suddenly. "I want to go home! I'm sick of this damned limbo!"
AS I SAID BEFORE YOUR MAJESTY-
"I told you to just call me Macbeth!"
Death paused a moment before continuing.
AS I SAID BEFORE.MACBETH, YOU STILL HAVE A PART TO PLAY.
"What part? Why the Hell can't you tell me?" roared the Scottish King. "I am sick of your cryptic bullshit! TELL ME!"
NO.
"Why not?"
BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW.
Macbeth stared at Death for a moment. "What do you mean you don't know?"
I MEAN I DON'T KNOW, sighed Death. YOU STILL HAVE A PART TO PLAY. WHAT PART I DON'T KNOW, WHEN YOU ARE TO PLAY THIS PART.I DON'T KNOW THAT EITHER. ALL I KNOW OF THE MATTER IS THAT YOU ARE NOT FINISHED JUST YET.
Death wandered over to Macbeth and placed a skeletal hand on his shoulder. Macbeth sighed sadly and looked at the ground for a moment.
"I did this," he said after a while. "I should never have gotten him involved."
THERE IS NO POINT IN WORRYING ABOUT WHAT IS IN THE PAST. TRUST ME ON THIS. IT NEVER HELPS.
"I was so convinced that she would destroy them."
YOU COULDN'T HAVE POSSIBLY KNOWN THAT IS WAS THE BOOK DOING THAT TO YOU.
"Even so.it's still my fault. If I hadn't gotten Brooklyn involved-"
THEN IT WOULD HAVE MANIPULATED FANG, OR MALIBU.OR JEZEBEL. IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN A GREAT DEAL LONGER.BUT IT WOULD HAVE SUCCEEDED. IT PICKED BROOKLYN BECAUSE IT HAD EVERYTHING IT NEEDED TO WORK WITH.
Both stood in silence for a very long time, the only audible sound was that of a very light breeze as it stirred the sand at their feet.
"What if he succeeds?"
HE MUST NOT SUCCEED, said Death.
IF HE DOES.
Death paused and looked out into the desert.
Although Macbeth couldn't see it, there were thousands of souls walking along, all completely oblivious to each other's existence. Every race, every creed, the good, the evil, the prey.
and the predators.
IF HE DOES.I'M AFRAID I'LL BE VERY BUSY.
To be continued.
Well? Like it? Hate it? Please tell me! Huge thanks to Storyseeker for beta reading and giving me advice on this episode, you rock! Extra big thanks to anyone out there who likes the series so far, you guys rock too! Remember, ideas, advice, comments etc. welcome! Hell I'll even accept flames if they are reasonable and contain no less than 10 swear words.
Until the next time.
Darkness
Author: Darkness. Address: darknessdescending2000@yahoo.co.uk
Author's Note: Once again, I don't own the Malus Codicium, it was created by sci-fi author Dan Abnett (who rocks!), now that that's cleared up, don't sue me!
Sudeny, Czech Republic: Night
Zhuge Liang got out of the truck along with Edmund and Paul. They scanned the surrounding area.
They had pulled up in the town centre where they had seen the car, they had been tracking, pull up just outside a restaurant before they had headed off.
The rain had become a torrent.
A fourth figure emerged from the cab of the truck; it looked around at the deserted street.
"I'm afraid my team will not be able to get any altitude in this rain Inquisitor," it said, it's voice male, "we shall have to drive to wherever the Arch Heretic is."
Zhuge turned to face the figure.
"Not to worry Sebastian," he replied, "I already know gargoyles cannot glide in heavy rain."
Sebastian sunk his head apologetically. "Still Inquisitor, I am sorry."
Sebastian towered over the Chinese Inquisitor. His skin was a deep shade of purple, a pair of small horns protruded from his forehead while a bony crest acted, as his eyebrows. His wings, like most gargoyles, were on his back, with clawed talons resting upon their tops. He had a long shock of dark grey hair that was tied back in a ponytail. His eyes were a light green; he had a small nose and a square jaw. He was dressed in a heavily armoured black body glove, with a black, sleeveless leather jacket such as the one that Edmund was wearing. Upon the right breast of his body glove, was the symbol of his Kill-Team. A white crucifix with a black alpha imprinted in the centre and two white swords crossing diagonally behind the cross. He was armed with a combat shotgun that was slung over his back in a sheath, with extra shells in his jacket, two Glock 9mm pistols on shoulder holsters while extra clips hung on his equipment belt, along with several combat knives. He held a Naginta polearm in his right hand.
"Where is he Zhuge?" Asked Edmund, "still in the restaurant?"
Zhuge looked at the front of the only restaurant in town, his mind reaching out to the few people inside.
"No," he answered after several seconds. He expanded his search to his full capability.
Nothing.
"I don't understand," said Zhuge, his eyes widening, "I can't feel him any longer."
Edmund and Sebastian stared at him, stunned, while Paul turned to face him.
"What do you mean you can't sense him any longer?" asked Paul, he had been eyeing someone across the street that had been staring at them from the shadows and his hands had slipped into his coat, where he had slowly produced one of his pairs of berettas.
"Something's blocking his position," explained Zhuge, hurriedly, "he's somewhere that's blocking the psychic beacon that I put on him."
"Then what the Hell are we supposed to do now?" said Edmund, angrily.
*****
"Let's kill them," said Riana, staring at the oblivious Inquisitors from the top of the hill, Brooklyn was competing for the Black Sun in, through a pair of very powerful binoculars.
"Agreed," said Furcifer, rubbing his beard thoughtfully beside her, "but how?"
"May I call up the legions of the undead?" Asked Rincewald, hopefully.
Riana and Furcifer stared at him, as if he'd gone daft.
"What legions of the undead?" Asked Furcifer, "exactly how many people are in this dump's graveyard that could be used as zombies?"
Rincewald thought for a moment before replying, "Twenty-three?"
"And that's a legion in your books?" Snapped Riana. She turned to face Furcifer. "Let me go down there and kill them."
"No," said Furcifer, a horrible grin forming across his lips, "I have a much, much better idea that I would rather use."
He strode over to Rincewald's two assistants and smiled.
"I shall need a little.sustenance beforehand though."
Before either of them could react, Furcifer was upon them, grabbing them by the throats and snapping their necks in a grip, far stronger than any human was. Fuzzy jumped from the blonde's hands, as Furcifer let go of their broken necks and grabbed their faces instead, making sure his palms covered their open mouths.
He smiled cruelly, as he felt their souls trying to escape their corpses. The whites of his eyes changed to black while his dark green irises remained the same colour.
He reached out for them. He caught them.
He fed off them before they could be judged. Draining their essence, their memories, personalities, everything that was them, was absorbed by Furcifer.
He let out a moan of ecstasy, as he dropped the two useless bodies.
Riana smiled while Rincewald started shaking with rage.
"Just what the Hell do you think you're doing?" He roared, striding towards Furcifer, "do you have any fucking idea how much trouble I had to go through to get my hands on them?"
"Should I care?" Asked Furcifer in an absent-minded manner, as he brushed past the infuriated Necromancer and walked up to where Riana stood, looking out over the town.
He looked at her impatiently.
"Stand aside woman. This won't take long."
Riana complied, as Furcifer took her position and spread his arms out. He smiled cruelly, as his body became surrounded in a dark aura, as black as his hair and eyes.
He began to chant in the Daemon's tongue.
*****
Brooklyn tried to scream, but the flames burned his lungs out, as soon as he opened his mouth.
~Not so confident now are we?~
He staggered across the room, his entire body enveloped in black flames.
His instincts told him to let go of the staff. But he wouldn't.
He knew without asking that this was his only chance.
The pain was indescribable.
He could feel his skin boiling, the inside of his lungs were aflame.
But he couldn't black out.
It wouldn't let him.
"F-f-f-f-f-fuck!"
~Indeed. ~
*****
Alexander Stein read the paper, as his two daughters, Lela and Sara played with some dolls in front of the television. His wife, Alisa was currently in the kitchen, preparing dinner for her family.
He was first.
Alexander suddenly felt something odd, a presence of some form inside the house, something unnatural.
He opened his mouth to ask Alisa if she could feel something odd as well.
But he was not quick enough.
Furcifer seized him, battering down his free will, crushing it into nothing. Alexander tried to scream, but no sound emerged from his lips.
Nor would it ever again.
A tenth of a second later, his daughters and then his wife's wills were crushed.
And then their neighbours, then their neighbours, and so on and so forth.
In barely two minutes, Sudeny had become a village of puppets.
*****
"I would have tried to just try and seize the Inquisitors' minds," explained Furcifer to Riana and Rincewald, "But they're trained to resist this sort of thing."
He grinned, "besides, this is much more fun."
*****
Zhuge's eyes widened, his legs gave out and he collapsed to the ground.
Something was happening.
"Oh my God," he muttered.
"Inquisitor!"
"Zhuge!"
Sebastian and Edmund rushed to help him up while Paul twirled around. Berettas out.
There were people walking out of shops, the restaurant, the church, the laundry, some were even coming out of the town hall.
"What the Hell's going on?" Asked the Italian, nervously.
Almost fifty people were walking towards the Inquisitors, their faces blank, their eyes staring outwards, as if in a daze. They had almost surrounded them when one; a girl aged around fifteen, walked up a little closer than the others did.
"Hello Inquisitors," she said in a middle-aged male's voice, "I'm afraid you're not welcome here. I suggest you all leave while you still can."
Sebastian yelled out, calling the rest of his Kill-Team. The back doors of the truck burst open and the five other members of his Kill-Team, all gargoyles, jumped out and rushed up to them.
Edmund was desperately talking to Zhuge, trying to get a response out his old friend. But he was just staring out into space in horror.
Paul never took his eyes off the girl.
"Who are you?" He asked, venomously, keeping her covered with his pistols.
"My name does not matter," replied the possessed girl. "What does matter is that I cannot and will not allow you to interfere with the Anointed One's gathering of weapons. Leave now or die."
Zhuge appeared to be recovering from the psychic shockwave by now. He rose a little unsteadily to his feet with Edmund giving him support. He walked over to beside Paul.
"We cannot leave," he said firmly. "You are evil incarnate and must be destroyed. Both you and the Anointed."
"Ha!" Said the puppet. "Much easier said than done Inquisitor." The puppet smiled at him, cruelly. "But how far are you prepared to go to stop us?"
As one of the people turned meat puppets began to advance towards the Inquisitors and the Kill-Team.
"Zhuge!" yelled Paul. "What do we do now?"
Zhuge looked helplessly from his group to the puppets coming towards them.
Quite a lot of them were brandishing knives. The ones from the restaurant were holding cleavers.
Sebastian wrenched the shotgun from his back, preparing it, as the rest of his team armed their own weapons, while muttering prayers of accuracy and fortitude.
"Your orders Inquisitor?" He yelled when he was certain his team were ready.
The puppets were quite close now.
"Zhuge!" Yelled Edmund. "Zhuge!"
Zhuge stared at the advancing crowd.
There were six billion people on Earth. These were perhaps fifty.
What did fifty lives matter in the quest to save six billion?
Zhuge shook his head ruefully.
But they did matter. They were innocent. They had nothing to do with this.
He couldn't have them slaughtered just because some psycho had arrived in town, intent on getting his claws on a weapon of mass destruction.
Could he?
"Zhuge!"
Perhaps he could try and wrestle the evil influence out of these people?
"Inquisitor!"
No. He was kidding himself.
"Zhuge!"
Whoever was doing this was way over his head.
"For the love of God Inquisitor, tell us your orders!"
No. There really was only one way.
"God forgive us," muttered Inquisitor Zhuge Liang, as he gave the go ahead to the Kill-Team, as he drew his own Uzi's and began firing into the advancing crowd.
The sounds of screams, gunshots and the roar of a minigun filled the street, as the flames from a flame-thrower lighted it up.
It lasted barely a minute.
*****
"Well that went well," said Riana, sarcasm dripping from her silky voice.
"Patience woman," said Furcifer without turning to face her. His arms were outstretched towards the town below him. "There is plenty of cannon-fodder down there."
*****
Brooklyn fell to his knees; the black flames rising to an even higher degree of pain.
He shut his eyes.
The pain. It was a distraction. He had to shut it out if he hoped to succeed.
~Ah! Still thinking? Very commendable! Obviously I'm not hot enough. ~
Brooklyn threw his head back and screamed silently, as the flesh on his hands began to melt.
~I love being me. ~
The conscience hanging around Brooklyn's neck suddenly began to glow.
Brooklyn's eyes opened, twin balls of pale blue flame.
He saw Demona, standing before him. Laughing at him.
He cursed her for being the cause of all his pain.
The image of Demona suddenly changed to that of Oberon.
He was smiling at him triumphantly.
"What's the matter little gargoyle?" He asked, mockingly, "is it that you've finally realised you're a failure?" Oberon laughed at him.
Brooklyn felt the rage inside of him, boiling up.
The image changed again, this time to someone he had practically worshipped once.
Goliath.
The huge lavender gargoyle stood before him, disgust painted all over his face.
"To think I actually picked you, as my second," he said, "you're pathetic. Your life was not worth all those times I had to save it."
He turned his back on Brooklyn. "You are nothing compared to Demona. You hear me you miserable little shit? Nothing!"
Brooklyn shut his eyes again, boiling hot tears of rage forming in his eyes.
Goliath was wrong. He was something. Something far greater than that slow- witted fool could imagine.
His face contracted into a snarl. He couldn't feel the pain any longer.
He'd show them. He'd show them just what he was capable of.
And then he'd have his revenge on all of them.
A flicker of pale blue light began to surround his body, shielding it from the flames. Within minutes it had grown to the same level of the black flames, shielding him completely from them.
His lungs tasted air again.
~By the Black Throne! ~
"I.WILL.NOT.BE.STOPPED.BY.THE.LIKES.OF.YOU!"
*****
They were damned.
He was damned.
Zhuge and the others strode through the town, the rain and the wind battering them.
They had lost their truck.
A puppet had done a kamikaze run at it with a bus.
One of the Kill-Team, Monica, had been killed in the explosion after one of the fuel tanks had ignited, from her flame-thrower.
Sebastian had shot her in the head to stop her suffering.
The five remaining members had all been injured with light burns and cuts from flying pieces of metal mostly.
Edmund was taking point with Martin and Brigid, twenty meters ahead of the rest of the group.
Brigid was a female gargoyle that had originally been recruited in county Cork in the Republic of Ireland. She was the only member of the Kill-Team who hadn't been born and raised in the Sanctums of the Vatican. She had long black hair and jade green eyes. She had a small nose, a strong chin and a tiny pair of "devil" like horns protruding from her forehead. Her skin was olive-green like Lexington's. She was dressed in the same attire, as the rest of her team and was armed with a bastard sword that was slung over her back, a sniper variant of the M-16 assault rifle, a Desert Eagle pistol and a pair of Sai daggers.
Martin, her mate for seven years now, was enormous. He had roughly the same build as Goliath. He had a small beak, webbed ears, sea-green eyes, a bald scalp and jet-black skin. He carried a square shaped titanium shield, which currently hung on his belt alongside his electro-war hammer, which was much bigger and more finely made in the Vatican War Smiths, than any Quarryman could hope to wield. A standard issue berretta 9mm hung on his belt. He held a belt fed mini-gun in his hands, with almost twenty thousand rounds attached to his back in a carrying case. He had used over half of his ammunition, disposing of almost a hundred people and two buses that had tried to ram the party.
They were slowly headed to where Zhuge had believed the source of the psychic power, which was turning the people of this town into mindless puppets, was located.
Behind them in the main group, Zhuge was having a crisis of conscience.
He had ordered the killing of innocent people, so that he could save many more.
Men, women, old people.
Children.
He closed his eyes and shook his head.
Children.
It had been necessary, as had the deaths of all the other people who had charged them mindlessly, mouths wide open, screaming and waving whatever weapons they could find.
"Inquisitor?"
Zhuge opened his eyes and looked to see Sebastian.
"Yes?" he replied tiredly.
Sebastian looked haggard; he had a large gash across his right cheek that was still bleeding. Most of his long hair had been singed when their truck had been taken out. His right arm had third degree burns across it that he didn't seem to notice.
"We're running low on ammunition."
"Damn," said Zhuge, he looked around at the group. Most of them were taking out back-up weapons. Sebastian was holding his Naginta in both hands and had one and a half, full clips for his Glocks, while Paul reported that he only had three full clips left for his brace of pistols.
He looked to the two other members of the Kill-Team, Ezekiel and Catherine.
Ezekiel was around human height, with burgundy skin, elf like ears, chestnut coloured eyes, a small beard on his chin that was light brown like his short crop of hair and a hawk like nose. Attached to the hips of his body glove, was a pair of sawn-off elephant shotguns, roughly about a third of the normal length of one of the enormous rifles. He only had a dozen shells left. He was also equipped with a .45 Magnum revolver, which had run out of ammunition. Three throwing axes, which were attached to his belt (he originally had six, but had lost three in the chaotic fighting), a garrotte, a Boa knife and was holding a long sword in his hands.
Catherine's only gun, an MP-5, was out of ammunition and had been dumped already. She preferred close combat to ranged fighting anyway. She was equipped with a dozen or so knives of various sizes, a pair of spiked brass knuckles, an enormous Kukri, and a pair of matching single edged short swords that she was currently holding. She had long black hair, sky-blue eyes, bone coloured skin, a hooked nose, sharp chin, elfish ears and a single horn that jutted back over her hair from the centre of her forehead.
She looked at Zhuge, sympathetically.
"There was nothing you could do for them Inquisitor. If we don't reach the Arch Heretic before he gets the weapon hidden here.all is lost."
Zhuge nodded to her, appreciatively, "thank you Catherine. But I truly believe we are damned for this."
*****
"They're getting awfully close," said Rincewald, worriedly. His staff was lying on a picnic table while he held Fuzzy in one hand while stroking him with the other.
"Shut up," replied Furcifer. "I'm busy."
"Yes do shut up Rincewald," joined Riana. "I really can't stand listening to that voice of yours."
"Fuck you PMS girl!"
"Oh! Go shave your eyebrows fatty!"
"Prostitute!"
"Stiff Shagger!"
"SILENCE!"
Riana and Rincewald looked nervously in Furcifer's direction. He had stopped looking out over the town and was staring at them with murder in his eyes.
"You two do know that that kind of behaviour would be considered outrageous in a nursery?" He asked calmly enough, although his black eyes were still screaming bloody murder. "Now both of you behave while I finish these unenlightened fools off."
"How come you get to have all the fun?" Asked Riana, bitterly.
"Because I'm your superior," replied Furcifer, smugly.
Riana responded by flipping Furcifer off. He frowned at her before returning his attention back to the trap that he claimed he was setting up.
*****
It roared at him, the entire room rippling, as strands of black flame and pale blue light began flaring off in random directions.
Walls began to pulsate, as if they were breathing while faces of people and gargoyles began to emerge from others, writhing and screaming in the throws of the damned.
It was deafening.
The altar began to shudder violently, cracks appearing along the smooth obsidian surface before it exploded altogether, chunks the size of fists flying through the air before stopping mid-flight, caught by some unseen grasp.
The floor began to ripple, as if it were liquid, the gold emblem of the Dark Prince, the huge Pentecostal Star covering the floor, began to twist and turn of it's own accord, as if it were some living two dimensional creature.
The sky scene on the ceiling had become chaotic. The stars were moving at random, colliding and exploding, while other went supernova and still more collapsed upon themselves to form black holes.
It struck out at him in desperation, a tendril of black flames rising, as if a snake about to strike at his head.
As it moved to strike, it was struck out of existence by a tendril of pale blue light.
Over the screams came the echo of maniacal laughter.
"Not so confident now are we?" Screamed Brooklyn, a terrible grin on his face.
~YOU SHALL NOT HAVE DOMINION OVER ME GARGOYLE! ~
"Oh yes I will!" Replied Brooklyn; he was still on his knees, the Black Sun held above him in both hands. The pale blue light emanating from his body had almost totally enveloped the staff. The Lack of Conscience around his neck was glowing too, the amber light adding to the pale blue's assault upon the black flames.
~You can't keep this up forever Gargoyle! ~
Brooklyn frowned.
The Daemon was right of course. He couldn't keep this up much longer. His outburst of power had come from his intense hatred of the people who had ruined his life. His body couldn't keep running on that. The amount of willpower that he was using to force the daemon onto the defensive was weakening very quickly.
In a few more minutes, he would be burning again.
~Just let me go, ~ said the Daemon, its tone becoming softer. ~Your power is impressive. But you just don't have the strength to carry on. Give up and become my slave. ~
"NEVER!" Screamed Brooklyn. "You shall call me Master before this is over Daemon!"
~Foolish creature! I gave you a chance! ~ Yelled the Daemon, redoubling it's efforts.
The black flames burst from the staff with greater strength than before, forcing the blue and amber lights back from it, as Brooklyn swore.
He snarled viciously.
This had to end now.
Calling up any reserves of strength he had, Brooklyn tried to strengthen his shield while using the Conscience to delve into the pages of the Malus Codicium, to learn the Daemon's true name before his defences collapsed entirely.
The Daemon hissed, as it realised what he was doing and attacked even harder.
~I shall not lose! ~
*****
Zhuge swore in his home tongue, as he thrust his sword through an old woman's face.
A hissing noise came from inside her head, as he withdrew his weapon and twirled around to block a swipe from a middle-aged man with a cleaver. He then sliced the man's head clean off, a small fountain of blood erupting from the wound and spraying Zhuge in the face.
"Fuck!" He screamed in a brief reprieve.
They had been ambushed, as they had been coming up the road.
Hordes of people, probably what little was left of the town's population, had swept down upon them from a pair of hills on each side of the road leading to the hill where the psychic power was emanating from.
Martin and Brigid had mowed down almost the entire left flank of the attack before they had run out of ammunition and had switched to close combat weapons.
He could see Martin over the chaos. Spinning, blocking attacks with his shield before bringing his war hammer, a bright blue electrical flame covering the head, down onto peoples' heads, often detonating them from the power of the blow. As a result, he was slick with blood, gore, bone and brain fragments.
Headshots. They were the only way to stop the blood-frenzied puppets. They had learned this the hard way. Zhuge had almost emptied an entire clip from his Uzi into that girl's chest. But she had still come at him, screaming and waving a knife in her hands. She had only dropped when he had landed a head shot in.
He parried an axe blow from a man in his fifties and in one fluid motion, drew a dagger from his belt, spun around his latest attacker and buried the point of it into the back of the man's head. He wrenched it out, as the corpse was going into spasms and hurled the dagger wildly into a group of puppets rushing towards him. The blade buried itself into a young girl's forehead; her body went rigid, as it collapsed on the ground.
*****
Ezekiel roared in anger, as he hurled his last throwing axe at an oncoming puppet (Mid thirties, blonde hair, nice ass by human standards), which dropped, as the blade almost went through her head from the speed it was travelling at.
A boy in his early twenties stabbed him in the gut with a butcher knife. Ezekiel roared in agony, as he threw a backhand slap and sent his assailant flying into the tumult. He grabbed the handle of the knife in his left hand, as he maimed a pregnant woman with an axe, slicing her hands off and then decapitating her with his sword in his right hand. Gritting his teeth, he pulled the knife from his belly, as three puppets, all in their teens charged him.
The first crumpled to the ground, as a butcher knife connected with his head, the second got the top half of her head removed from an upward slash with the sword while the third was cleaved in half at the waist from the follow-up.
Ezekiel shivered in disgust, as the top half of the teen crawled along the ground with its one remaining arm to try and bite him in the ankle.
He stamped on its head until it stopped moving.
He heard a scream and spun around just in time to see Catherine being stabbed in the back by a puppet wearing a priest's outfit with a huge knife.
"NO!" Screamed the burgundy gargoyle, rushing through the melee, slashing blindly left and right, his entire uniform glistening with blood and gore.
The puppet-priest continued stabbing the fallen Catherine, even though she wasn't moving any longer.
Ezekiel screamed at the top of his voice, as he wrenched one of his sawn- off elephant guns from its holster. He took careful aim while running.
The puppet-priest looked up just in time to see Ezekiel pull the trigger.
Its head was liquefied, as one of the two barrels let out a deafening boom, the force of the recoil almost breaking the gargoyle's wrist.
Ezekiel dropped on his knees beside Catherine, tears clouding his vision. He turned her around in his arms, dropping his sword and gun, his lip quivering, as he stared into her now peaceful face. He looked into her open eyes, already glazing over, for several seconds before he gently closed them and kissed her lightly on the lips.
"I love you," he whispered into her ear.
His hands began to shake, as he laid her down gently on the ground and reached for her swords.
A second later he was tearing through the chaotic ranks of puppets, screaming Catherine's name at the top of his voice, as he killed one and then another and then another with her swords.
*****
Sebastian spun the Naginta above his head, howling the Catechism of Protection, before twisting it into a downward arc, the curved blade at the end of the short wooden pole splitting a puppet in two, spraying him with blood. His dark grey hair had turned a deep red from the amount of blood that he had sprayed all over him.
He saw a dozen puppets several meters away rushing towards him, waving knives, axes and other improvised weapons.
He drew his pistol in his right hand. It only had eight bullets left.
He picked his shots carefully, nailing eight of them with headshots, three of them right between the eyes, before throwing away the now useless gun and twirling his Naginta in his hands and decapitating the first of the remaining four that rushed him. The other three screamed at him at the top of their lungs, as they all slashed at him, two with axes, missed him while the third, wielding a knife, stabbed him in the thigh. Sebastian swore mid- prayer and head-butted the one who stabbed him, sending the puppet's nose through its face, before wrenching the knife out of his leg and throwing it at one of his two remaining attackers, the blade going through an eye and beyond in one of the puppet's heads. It crumbled to the ground silently.
Sebastian reached for a throwing knife in his belt when a female puppet, in her mid-forties, stabbed him in the back with a knife. Sebastian howled in pain as he reached over his head and grabbed the puppet by its dress and hurled it over his head, sending it crashing into the puppet in front of him. He brought his hand around to try and pull the knife from his back when another group of puppets, seven this time, attacked him.
They all piled on top of him, bringing him to the ground by weight of numbers. Sebastian began kicking them off wildly. His Naginta had been knocked out of his hand and he was desperately clawing for one of the knives he had on his belt when he noticed the point of the knife he had been stabbed in the back with was now protruding from his stomach. He had been impaled without even realising it.
It was only then did he realise just how tired that he was feeling. He tried to shake the feeling off, but he just couldn't.
He noticed one of the puppets had actually grabbed his own Naginta and was raising it above their head, bladed end pointing down towards his chest.
The puppet brought the short spear down, but Sebastian refused to die that easily. The gargoyle's arms shot up and grabbed the spear just at where the blade ended, holding it in place.
He smiled triumphantly up at the desperate puppet, as he began to push the bladed tip away from his chest.
He was so focused on this that he didn't notice the puppet with the knife moving to slit his throat until it was too late to react.
His last thought was just how unfair it was.
*****
Paul Rossi gunned another puppet down before discarding his second last berretta, muttering any prayers he could think of, as he drew his last pistol in his left hand while he held one of his tomahawk war axes in his right.
A pair of puppets rushed him. He brought them both down with headshots.
Another came at him, waving what looked like an antique sword. He dodged the clumsy swipe and split his assailant's head open with his axe, cursing himself for not thinking of bringing some grenades.
There was a high-pitched scream behind him. He spun around quickly and brought his pistol to bear on.
.A child, a little girl, roughly nine or ten, she had adorable blonde locks in her hair and even glazed over, her green eyes were enchanting. She just stood there staring at him, mouth wide open, and eyes blank. He felt his pistol hand begin to shake violently.
He couldn't do it. God in Heaven! Help him! He couldn't shoot a child, even a possessed one. It was still a child. He couldn't make a callous decision like this.
Fortunately he wouldn't have to.
By some very cruel twist of fate, the girl's sister, her younger by four years, stabbed the big Italian in the back of the head, as he wrestled with his conscience, with her dad's biggest screwdriver.
Paul Rossi's face contorted in pain for the briefest second, before he fell forward on the ground, the two girls stabbing the back of his head repeatedly until Inquisitor Edmund Burke saw this and put a bullet through both their heads while screaming Paul's name.
*****
"PAUL!"
Paul was stabbed.
He fell.
He died.
Burke put a bullet through each of the girls' heads with one of his revolvers before another wave of puppets tried to rush him.
He downed three of them with his pistol before it ran out of bullets. Swearing, he threw it away, drawing a pair of throwing knives and killing two more puppets before drawing his cavalry sabre and charging half a dozen of them while roaring a battle cry.
The first one that came at him got its head removed in a clean swipe. The next got its jaw dislodged, as Burke punched it, as hard as he could, with the hand-guard of his sword. He sliced its head off as it fell on its knees.
The other four tried pounce on top of him in an attempt to bring him to the ground. Burke did a diving roll at their feet, sending the four of them to the floor while he jumped to his feet and ran to Rossi's corpse.
He reached down and grabbed his friend's berretta, spun around and killed the four puppets as they were rising with clean headshots.
He looked around at the carnage, taking huge gasps of air.
The puppets had been reduced in number considerably.
There was barely thirty or forty now.
Easy Peasy Lemon Squeazy.
He slumped forward onto his knees, mentally and physically shattered. He couldn't do this; he just didn't have the strength any longer.
A pair of puppets ran at him, both brandishing screwdrivers.
He was too tired to try and fight them off so he just shot the pair, not really caring that he was using up bullets that might be needed later if actually survived this mess.
*****
Martin swore as a puppet stabbed him in the shoulder with a knife. He kicked it hard in the gut, sending it flying across the road.
It landed hard on its back and when it tried to rise. Inquisitor Burke shot it in the head, at some distance. He was kneeling on the ground and didn't look very well.
He could see Ezekiel rushing towards the Englishman to see if he was okay.
"MARTIN!"
Martin looked around just in time to see a puppet lunge at him with an axe. He sidestepped the attack easily and hit his assailant in the back of the head with his war hammer. The back of the puppet's head (in this case a middle-aged woman) caved in as if it were a watermelon, the puppet going stiff for a brief second before dying.
"Thanks!" he yelled to Brigid.
His mate nodded to him before most of the remaining puppets rushed her, dragging her to the ground and stabbing her to death.
It happened within a few seconds.
So quickly Brigid barely had a chance to scream.
Martin screamed though. He screamed his wife's name over and over again, as he wrenched the knife from his shoulder and threw himself at the puppets, almost twenty of them and began tearing his way through them to reach her.
He noticed Ezekiel out of the corner of his eye, running to help with Catherine's swords in his hands.
He looked terrible.
*****
Zhuge parried a blow with his sword and punched the puppet that was trying skewer him with a kebab stick. It stumbled back but came at him again. He rolled to the left of its thrust and came up, his sword cutting through the air in an upward thrust of his own. The edge of his Tai-Chi sword stabbed into the puppet's temple, a hissing sound came from its lips before it fell to the ground, dead.
Another came at him with an axe; he rolled backwards and evaded the clumsy attack. He got to his feet quickly and slid his sword though a middle-aged man's head.
It collapsed to the ground and Zhuge twirled around, panting like a dog to face his next opponent.
But none came.
They had won, in a manner of speaking.
Bodies. Everywhere!
Some lying in piles, others out on their own. The ground was littered with body parts. Heads, both whole and partial, hands, arms and fingers.
The stench of death was incredible.
Zhuge's sword hung limply in his right hand, he'd lost his cloak, where and when, he just couldn't remember at the moment.
He saw Burke on his knees several feet away, he was breathing heavily and looked awful. He was red from head to toe in other peoples' blood, his sword and one of Paul's pistols in his hands hung at his sides. His body glove was torn in a dozen places.
Zhuge staggered over to his friend, almost slipping on some gore, as he did so. He looked down at the ground and felt like he was going to throw up. The tarmac road was slippery with blood, almost ankle deep in parts, despite the heavy rain.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered to no one in particular.
He reached Edmund and fell to his knees beside him.
"Edmund?"
Burke didn't answer; he just stared at the ground.
"Edmund? Are you alright?"
"Hell."
Zhuge frowned. "What?"
"I said Hell Zhuge," whispered Edmund. "You.me.we're in Hell Zhuge. If not in Hell.then we'll be there soon."
Burke shut his eyes, as tears began to form.
"Oh God Almighty.what the fuck have we done?" He sobbed.
"We have done our job Inquisitor," a voice spoke from behind them. Zhuge and Edmund turned their heads to see Ezekiel standing near-by.
His left eye had been torn out by a slash from an axe and blood was gushing from the socket. The stab wound in his belly was still bleeding. He was swaying slightly, as he stood before them. His arms were hanging limply at his sides, Catherine's swords dangling in his hands.
Edmund and Zhuge stared at him in shock.
How the Hell was he still standing?
"We did our job Inquisitor," Ezekiel repeated. "And now.we have to finish this.we.we.we must stop that bastard from getting his claws on whatever it is here that he wants so badly that he's willing to let an entire town get wiped out."
"He's right," said Martin tiredly. He was on his knees, roughly ten meters away from the rest of the group, cradling Brigid in his arms. He stroked her hair gently with his right hand. It looked like he had been crying. "She can't die in vain. she won't die in vain.I.I won't let that happen."
He slowly rose to his feet, reaching for his hammer and shield. "If you back out now, then all this has been for nothing. The lives of my friends, the lives of these people, the life of.my.my wife. They would all have been lost in vain." He stood up, swaying from exhaustion and blood loss, and stared at them, his face hardening. "I'm going.if you don't come with me.then I hope you all rot in Hell." With that, he turned to head up the road.
"Martin!" yelled Zhuge. The gargoyle turned to face the Chinese Inquisitor. Zhuge was forcing himself onto his feet, shrugging off the assistance Ezekiel tried to offer. "Give us a few minutes to rest.then we'll be on our way again."
Martin nodded and sat down quietly, while Zhuge and Ezekiel tried to help Edmund to his feet.
*****
He could hear thunder, as a gale swept through the room, almost drowning out the sounds of the faces on the wall screaming.
"Nearly there," he whispered to himself. The Codicium knew the Daemon's name. He just had to drag it out of it.
Its hold on the knowledge he sought was almost gone. Whittling away bit by bit as forced his will upon it.
~YOU WON'T TAKE ME! ~ Roared the Daemon.
Brooklyn gritted his teeth. The pale blue shield surrounding him was growing thinner by the second under the relentless assault by the black flames.
It was just a matter of time now.
He focused more on the Codicium. He was so close now.
A few more seconds.
But his shield finally collapsed.
Brooklyn sucked in a huge lung full of air just before the flames engulfed him again, shutting his eyes tight and trying to shut out the agony he felt again.
~You can't win gargoyle, ~ said the staff triumphantly, ~serve me. Become my slave. Worship me as the humans do their god. ~
Brooklyn ignored it, ignored the pain, his undivided attention upon the Codicium that the Conscience was leading him through.
He searched, and searched.
And found what he had been looking for.
~Gargoyle? ~
Brooklyn's eyes shot open, blazing with pale blue light. The pain had vanished.
~Uh Oh. ~
Brooklyn threw his head back, raising the Black Sun Staff in both his hands above his head.
"THZUL'GZHU'VSRA'KOTLLZ!"
The Daemon howled at him in blind rage. The black flames receded back into the staff, as the room began to return to normal, the chunks of the altar moved from where they hung mid-air, back together in the centre of the room. The faces on the walls vanished as the winds died down and the night sky above returned to normalcy.
Brooklyn looked down at his body.
It was untouched.
The flames were an illusion.
"Makes sense," he said to himself. "What's the point in flambéing every potential candidate for the weapons?"
He smiled to himself before yawning. Despite the illusion, he was exhausted. He swayed slightly.
~Are you tired.Master? ~ Asked the Daemon.
"Very."
~Then rest. There is nothing to fear from me any longer. You are the Anointed, the Chosen of the Dark Prince. I cannot hurt you. ~
Brooklyn nodded his thanks and slumped onto his side, asleep before his head even hit the floor.
*****
"Well I must say you did a fantastic job!" yelled Rincewald, his voice laden with sarcasm. "Spiffing in fact!"
"Shut your trap Necromancer!" replied Furcifer. "Talk to me like that again and I'll rip you stiff shagging balls off! You hear me?"
Riana clapped her hands in excitement. "My turn!" she yelled happily.
"It is most certainly not," said Rincewald. "This is my town. So I get to go now that Mr. I'm great cause I've got a big black coat is finished."
Furcifer eyed both of them dangerously. "Both of you shut up right now. I'm not finished just yet."
"Oh yes you are," said a voice at the end of the picnic area.
The three turned and saw the survivors of the Kill-Team, Martin and Ezekiel, and Inquisitors Burke and Liang.
None looked particularly happy.
Burke was covering the three of them with Paul's berretta, while Ezekiel pointed one of his sawn-off elephant shotguns at them.
"Holy Inquisition," said Zhuge slowly, his Tai-Chi sword firmly in his hands. "Surrender yourselves or die."
"Oh Balls," said Rincewald, he looked over to where his staff was lying on one of the picnic tables. "Shit."
Riana smiled sadistically, as she rubbed her hands together. "I knew I was going to ice something today!"
"Rincewald," said Furcifer slowly, as he raised his hands above him.
The Necromancer turned his head in Furcifer's direction. "Yes?"
Furcifer grinned horribly, "It's still my turn."
Furcifer suddenly threw out a backhand swipe at the Necromancer, hitting him hard in the gut, the force of the blow sending Rincewald high in the air and crashing through several bushes, as he landed on the opposite end of the picnic area. Almost twenty meters away.
Burke began firing at Furcifer before Rincewald was even half way over the first picnic table.
Furcifer rolled below the few bullets Burke had left, the Englishman swearing wildly and drawing his sword, as Furcifer came up and ran at him.
Ezekiel fired at Riana with both barrels of his shotgun, the recoil nearly fracturing his wrist, he tossed the gun aside as Riana rolled backwards, below the two rounds that blew out a huge chunk of the wall of sediment behind her.
Cackling madly she pulled out her whip and kukri, taunting the burgundy gargoyle before narrowly dodging a thrust by Zhuge. She blocked a follow-up slash by him with her kukri and kicked him hard in the right knee.
She smiled as she heard the bones crack and the knee joint going out of place while Zhuge screamed in pain and collapsed onto his side.
She moved to slit his throat, but was sent flying when Ezekiel rammed into her in a shoulder charge.
She rolled with the fall and came up to see the burgundy-coloured gargoyle on one knee, checking the Inquisitor.
Without even thinking she hurled her kukri knife at him while he wasn't looking. She let out a sigh of delight when the blade buried itself into his head, just behind the right ear.
Ezekiel went rigid, an odd hissing sound coming from his open mouth. Riana grabbed her whip and shot it out at him. It wrapped around his neck and Riana pulled her end in both hands with all her might, dragging the gargoyle over to her across the ground before tearing the dagger out of the side of his head and sitting on his stomach to watch his eye slowly glaze over. After a few seconds of staring into his surprised face, she slit his throat with the kukri in one quick slash, licking her lips, as his blood sprayed out over her face.
She looked over at Inquisitor Liang and smiled.
He'd blacked out.
She turned her attention to where Furcifer was fighting Burke and Martin.
The huge black gargoyle swung his hammer at Furcifer, but he ducked below the swing and sent Martin skidding across the muddy ground from a back hand slap, as Inquisitor Burke slashed at his face, missing by millimetres.
Furcifer laughed and grabbed hold of the blade with his bare hand, grinning evilly at Burke.
His grin was short lived though. The flesh around his hand began to blister and hiss, as if being burned by something.
Furcifer's eyes widened, as he hissed in pain, letting go of the blade and staggering back from the Englishman.
"AGH!!! BLESSED! FUCKING, FUCKING BLESSED!"
"You think that's bad!" screamed Burke, reaching into his sleeveless black leather jacket, pulling out a small vile of water. He flipped the cap open. "TRY SOME OF THIS YOU MURDERING BASTARD!"
He hurled the vile at Furcifer, water spraying all over his face. Furcifer screamed, his voice changing into something unearthly, as he did so. The water burned his face; hissing wildly and making smoke rise from his skin. Furcifer's hands covered his face.
"HOLY WATER! YOU FUCKING ENGLISH CUNT! I'LL TEAR YOUR MOTHER-FUCKING HEAD OFF FOR THIS!"
He screamed even louder when Martin jumped him from behind, bringing his war hammer, its head blazing in electrical fire from the power pack being set to full, crashing into Furcifer's lower back.
Furcifer went rigid for a moment, as he was electrocuted, before spinning around on the balls of feet to face Martin. The gargoyle stared at him dumbly before he tried to take another swing with his hammer, this time trying to bring it down on Furcifer's head.
Furcifer caught the shaft in one hand while shoving his other hand straight through Martin's chest.
For a moment both stood still, staring into each other's eyes, before Martin slowly lowered his head to look at his chest. Furcifer's right hand had broken through his body armour, his jet-black skin, his ribs and his left lung. Martin looked back up at Furcifer. He slowly opened his mouth, as if to say something. Furcifer leaned in closer to hear.
But Martin spat in his face instead.
Swearing a blue streak, Furcifer wrenched Martin's hammer out of his limp hand, bringing the still flaming head onto that of its master's while tearing his right hand, now slick with gore, out of the gargoyle's chest in the same instant.
The top of Martin's head caved in from the force with which Furcifer brought the hammer down. His head detonating the next instant, as the power pack on the hammer blew out, sending his falling corpse into mad spasms as it hit the ground.
Furcifer twirled around just in time to grab Burke's right hand, as the Inquisitor came at him, attempting to cleave his head off.
He crushed his wrist, smiling sadistically, as Burke dropped his sword and screamed in agony.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU?" roared the Englishman. "A FUCKING VAMPIRE? A DAEMON?"
Furcifer smiled.
"None of the above."
And with that, always being a man who kept his promises down to the letter, he tore Burke's head off.
*****
~Master?~
Brooklyn stirred slightly before his eyes slowly opened.
"What is it?" he said, yawning as sat up. The floor felt strangely warm.
~The battle is over. We are the victors,~ replied the daemon.
Brooklyn frowned, "what battle?"
~The battle against the Inquisitors. All have fallen. Furcifer has defeated them.~
"Furcifer? He did it by himself?"
~Well, Riana helped.a little.~
Brooklyn stood up, leaning on the Black Sun and walking over to the altar. His own staff was lying upon it.
He picked it up in his left hand while holding the Black Sun in his right. He still felt exhausted.
Leaning on both, he walked slowly over to the door.
*****
Furcifer stared down at Zhuge Liang. His dark green eyes filled with hate.
"Disgusting humans," he muttered.
He held Riana's Glock 9mm in his left hand.
His handsome face and the palm and fingers of his right hand were very badly burnt.
He emptied an entire clip into Zhuge's face before handing the pistol back to Riana.
"Thank you my dear."
"No problem," replied Riana as she reloaded the pistol.
"Did I miss something?" asked a voice behind them.
Riana and Furcifer turned to see Brooklyn standing at the entranceway to where the Black Sun was kept.
He was swaying slightly and held both his own staff and the Black Sun in his hands.
"Nothing important," said Rincewald while eyeing Furcifer hatefully, "Just a few pests that needed taking care of."
Brooklyn nodded and started to walk forward. He stumbled though and dropped his own staff from his left hand; it clattered to the ground while Brooklyn put both his hands around the Black Sun to hold himself up.
Riana moved over to him and threw his left arm around her shoulder while wrapping her right arm around his waist.
"A little tired?" she asked playfully.
"Learning a Daemon's true name is a lot more difficult than I thought," replied Brooklyn, leaning on her slightly for support. He looked suddenly alarmed and turned to look at Furcifer. "I'm not gonna have to go through all that again to get the other weapons am I?"
Furcifer just smiled and shrugged.
"Come on," said Rincewald suddenly, "let's get you in the van before anyone else shows up."
After they'd put Brooklyn in the only bed in Rincewald's camper van to rest. Rincewald came out again; he appeared to be a little flustered.
"Fuzzy! Fuzzy!"
"What are you doing?" snapped Furcifer. He had been rubbing his burnt face while sitting at one of the picnic tables when the Necromancer had exited the camper.
"You knocked Fuzzy out of my hands when you sent me flying across those picnic tables!" yelled Rincewald, "I didn't have a chance to look for him before!" He looked around the picnic area desperately. "FUZZY!"
"Squeak."
Rincewald twirled around to where the sound had come from, his face lighting up, "Fuzzy!"
The black guinea pig was sitting on one of the picnic tables several meters away from them.
Furcifer frowned. "What's that hanging out of its mouth?"
Rincewald walked up to the table quickly and picked Fuzzy up in both hands. He examined what was hanging out of his familiar's mouth. It was a few inches long, very furry and white with a black tip. It was moving slightly of it's own accord.
"It's a cat's tail," replied Rincewald in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Why, exactly is there a cat's tail hanging out of your guinea-pig's mouth?" Asked Furcifer, as he eyed the rodent in the Necromancer's arms very suspiciously.
"I imagine it's because he ate a kitty," replied Rincewald, before putting the fat guinea pig up to his face and cooing in a voice that would suggest he was trying to entertain a baby, "isn't that right Fuzzy. Yes it is. You're an evil guinea-piggy aren't you?"
"Squeak."
Rincewald suddenly stopped when he noticed the baffled look Furcifer was giving him.
"You are a sick, disgusting, evil, twisted, perverted old man," said Furcifer after a while.
Rincewald frowned at him, "I resent being called old."
Both smiled at each other.
"Are you coming?" Asked Rincewald, as he turned to get in the driver's seat of his camper.
"No," replied Furcifer, as he rose, yawning slightly, "I'm going to get a facial, seduce a few women, nuns probably and then I shall meet up with you again."
"I'll see you in a few days then," said Rincewald, getting into the driver's seat and slamming the door. "Oh, one thing," said the Necromancer suddenly, as he turned the key and the engine revved.
"What is it?" Asked Furcifer.
"Would you mind giving us a bit of a push, would you? It's just the tires tend to get a little stuck in the mud."
Furcifer grumbled something inexplicable under his breath, as he strode around to the back of the camper to give it a push.
As he did so, Rincewald floored the accelerator, spraying mud all over Furcifer as the wheels spun in the mud, before dislodging the camper and sending it speeding along the bloody road down to the town.
"THAT'S FOR MAKING ME MISS THE FUN DICKHEAD!" yelled Rincewald, as he sped away cackling madly.
Furcifer looked down at his ruined clothes, his fists shaking slightly.
"Bastard."
Eight hours later
Dominique Destine looked around at the carnage, her mouth wide open in shock.
"What the fuck happened here?" Yelled Fang, as he looked around at the horde of bodies and flaming wrecks in the town centre.
"I.I don't know," she replied, a little shakily.
This was unbelievable. She hadn't seen carnage on this scale since the Second World War!
Faith wandered around, dressed in a black armoured body glove, a long black leather coat that fell to her knees and heavy black boots. She had her sawn- off shotgun in one hand and an Uzi that Dominique had lent her in the other. A single-edged long sword hung over her back in a scabbard, while she kept four Glock 9mm pistols in holsters on her body glove and her pair of tonfa in her coat.
She knelt down beside one of the corpses and turned it over. An old, wrinkled face with no hair looked up at her. There were two bullet holes in his head.
She heard rapid and very panicked breathing behind her and turned around to see what was the matter.
It was Mal; he was standing, staring at the death all around him and shaking violently. He was hyperventilating.
"He wouldn't do this.he wouldn't do this." he repeated, as if it were a mantra.
He and all the other gargoyles had been turned human by Jezebel to aid them in their search; all were wearing armoured body gloves and attachments while carrying various arms.
"Hey. Take it easy Mal," said Fang kindly, taking his friend by the shoulders. "Look, how about I take you inside and.get you some soda eh?"
"There's so many.so many," said Mal, still staring out at the corpses. He could see ravens and other birds hopping along the ground among the bodies, eating eyeballs and nibbling at pale, cold flesh.
And the smell.
He was sure he was going to throw up any second now.
Fang could see it two. He grabbed Mal's head in his hands and forced his friend's gaze away from all the death.
"Mal! Mal look at me!" Yelled Fang. Mal turned his head and looked at the mutate in the eyes. Fang could see tears forming and felt a pang of guilt for exposing Malibu to this. "Come on. I'll take you back inside the van."
"Why would he do this?" Whimpered Mal as Fang slowly led him back to Demona's armoured bus.
"I don't know," replied Fang. He hugged Mal to his chest, as the clone started crying. "I don't know."
The others looked on in sympathy, as Fang closed the door to the van.
"Poor guy," said Broadway, as he tightened his grip on the war-hammer that Demona had given him.
"I.I guess he's never had to deal with anything like this before," said Lex, sighing. "No one should have to deal with this sort of stuff."
Both he and Broadway had seen their own share of the aftermath of battles while they defended Wyvern.
But, those bodies hadn't been in as many pieces, as some of these were.
"Does Brooklyn carry any guns?" Asked Faith.
"I believe he only took a pair of pistols," said Jezebel. She still wore her usual clothing, despite the fact everyone else was kitted out in body armour of some form.
Faith bent down and picked up a discarded cartridge, one of hundreds that littered the ground.
"This is from an assault rifle," said Faith after a moment's examination. "There's others here that look to be from a minigun, others are used shotgun shells. There are also a lot of 9mm rounds."
She seemed to be in deep thought for a moment.
"And what does all this mean?" Asked Goliath, getting more and more enraged at his former second-in-command by the second.
"I.I think," started Faith, "I think.this was done by my people."
The others stared at her in shock for a moment, taking in this new revelation.
"Your people did this?" Yelled Broadway, as he scanned the bodies littering the street. "I thought you people were supposed to be protecting innocents from this weird shit?"
"We are!" Replied Faith, quickly. "I don't know what happened here, but I know Zhuge must have had a good reason for doing all.this." She looked down at the ground for a moment before adding, "I hope," under her breath.
They advanced quickly to where Dominique and Jezebel said they could feel a great deal of magical backwash.
They encountered a lot more bodies on the way, which were also getting the treatment from various scavengers, crows and ravens mostly. After about ten minutes walking they came upon a dirt road leading to a picnic area that sat on a hill overlooking the town.
None of them had ever seen so many corpses, a lot of them with without heads, or worse, some with only parts of their heads remaining on their bodies.
It was at this point that both Lexington and Broadway threw up and had to head back to the van aswell. Leaving just Goliath, Jezebel, Faith and Dominique to continue up the road.
They found the bodies of Catherine, Brigid, Sebastian and Paul a little further on.
Goliath tried to ask Faith who these gargoyles were, but stopped when he saw that this visibly shook her.
He decided he'd ask her later.
They eventually reached the top of the hill and the picnic area, finding six more bodies. Four of which Faith recognised.
She didn't say anything. She just stood there, staring at them. She was shaking slightly and Goliath led her away somewhere where she could be alone for a few minutes.
"Well," said Jezebel after they'd gone. "I think we're screwed at this point."
She looked in Dominique's direction to seek a reply and frowned when she saw what she was doing.
She was kneeling down near a wall of natural sedimentary rock that had a few bullet holes in it. Her hands were scraping mud off something long and shiny on the ground.
"What is that?" asked the old lady, coming over quickly to help.
After a few seconds, they uncovered Brooklyn's staff.
"Why would he leave his staff behind?" Asked Jezebel, as Dominique picked the magnificent staff out of the wet mud.
"Perhaps he doesn't think he needs it anymore," replied Dominique.
"In that case.we really are screwed."
"Not quite."
Jezebel eyed the red head warily. "What are you talking about Demona? We were too late to stop him getting whatever the Hell was hidden around here. We don't know where the rest of these weapons are. What can we possibly do?"
Dominique closed her eyes slowly, she suddenly looked very tired.
"There is one thing old woman," she said, her voice heavy, as she dragged up ancient memories while picking the staff up in both hands and examining it.
It was perfect.
"There is.one thing left.that I can try."
Beyond Time and Space
Zhuge stirred, his eyes fluttering open, as he sat up and quickly took in his surroundings.
There was sand everywhere.
He looked up at the sky. There was no sun or moon, or any clouds or stars for that matter. The sky was a deep shade of purple.
"Where am I?" He asked no one in particular.
THE DESERT, replied a voice that sounded like slabs of granite hitting each other.
Zhuge spun about in all directions, looking for the owner of the very strange voice.
A figure stood several meters from him. It stood at seven foot and was dressed completely in black robes. It carried a scythe.
"I take it that your Death?" Asked Zhuge.
YOU ARE CORRECT.
"I guess that means I'm dead?"
ONCE AGAIN YOU ARE CORRECT.
Zhuge nodded and looked around at the endless stretches of sand all around him.
"Is this Hell?"
NO.
"Heaven?"
NO.
"Ah.Purgatory."
IN A MANNER OF SPEAKING.
"What am I supposed to do here?"
WALK.
"Why?"
BECAUSE JUDGEMENT AWAITS YOU AT THE END.
"Will I meet old friends along the way?"
Death smiled at him. MAYBE.
Zhuge looked at Death, suspiciously. "What about my mission? Will he be stopped?"
IT'S TOO SOON TO TELL I'M AFRAID INQUISITOR. HAVE FAITH. WHAT MUST BE WILL BE.
Zhuge looked over the vast expanses of sand. A tiny smile spread across his lips.
"I have always had faith my friend," he said after a moment. "Always."
He nodded to the figure in black before picking a direction at random and heading off at a brisk walk, smiling when he realised that he didn't have to walk with his limp anymore.
"What must be will be," he said to himself. He wasn't too sure what was going to happen, but something told him that it would turn out all right in the end.
Death watched Inquisitor Zhuge Liang go until he was a tiny silhouette.
"And when exactly will I be allowed to face my judgement?" Asked a bitter voice with a strong Scottish accent.
Death turned to face a man who hadn't been there a few seconds ago. He appeared to be in his mid fifties, dressed in black and with grey hair, a beard and a very large frown.
IF THERE IS ONE THING I HAVE LEARNED OVER THE AGES YOUR MAJESTY, said Death.
IT IS PATIENCE. NOW WOULD YOU LIKE A TEACAKE?
The other figure in black crossed his arms and eyed Death impatiently.
"No thank you."
ARE YOU SURE? Asked Death, smiling. THERE'RE TO DIE FOR.
Macbeth growled something under his breath.
"Why won't you let me go? I'd like to be with my family!" he yelled suddenly. "I want to go home! I'm sick of this damned limbo!"
AS I SAID BEFORE YOUR MAJESTY-
"I told you to just call me Macbeth!"
Death paused a moment before continuing.
AS I SAID BEFORE.MACBETH, YOU STILL HAVE A PART TO PLAY.
"What part? Why the Hell can't you tell me?" roared the Scottish King. "I am sick of your cryptic bullshit! TELL ME!"
NO.
"Why not?"
BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW.
Macbeth stared at Death for a moment. "What do you mean you don't know?"
I MEAN I DON'T KNOW, sighed Death. YOU STILL HAVE A PART TO PLAY. WHAT PART I DON'T KNOW, WHEN YOU ARE TO PLAY THIS PART.I DON'T KNOW THAT EITHER. ALL I KNOW OF THE MATTER IS THAT YOU ARE NOT FINISHED JUST YET.
Death wandered over to Macbeth and placed a skeletal hand on his shoulder. Macbeth sighed sadly and looked at the ground for a moment.
"I did this," he said after a while. "I should never have gotten him involved."
THERE IS NO POINT IN WORRYING ABOUT WHAT IS IN THE PAST. TRUST ME ON THIS. IT NEVER HELPS.
"I was so convinced that she would destroy them."
YOU COULDN'T HAVE POSSIBLY KNOWN THAT IS WAS THE BOOK DOING THAT TO YOU.
"Even so.it's still my fault. If I hadn't gotten Brooklyn involved-"
THEN IT WOULD HAVE MANIPULATED FANG, OR MALIBU.OR JEZEBEL. IT WOULD HAVE TAKEN A GREAT DEAL LONGER.BUT IT WOULD HAVE SUCCEEDED. IT PICKED BROOKLYN BECAUSE IT HAD EVERYTHING IT NEEDED TO WORK WITH.
Both stood in silence for a very long time, the only audible sound was that of a very light breeze as it stirred the sand at their feet.
"What if he succeeds?"
HE MUST NOT SUCCEED, said Death.
IF HE DOES.
Death paused and looked out into the desert.
Although Macbeth couldn't see it, there were thousands of souls walking along, all completely oblivious to each other's existence. Every race, every creed, the good, the evil, the prey.
and the predators.
IF HE DOES.I'M AFRAID I'LL BE VERY BUSY.
To be continued.
Well? Like it? Hate it? Please tell me! Huge thanks to Storyseeker for beta reading and giving me advice on this episode, you rock! Extra big thanks to anyone out there who likes the series so far, you guys rock too! Remember, ideas, advice, comments etc. welcome! Hell I'll even accept flames if they are reasonable and contain no less than 10 swear words.
Until the next time.
Darkness