The City by the Sea
Chapter 6
Focus, she told herself. Focus!
She reached up with her right hand and touched her guild mark.
Focus!
The smell of fresh blood was, sadly, all too familiar to her, what with the overabundance of slug fests she'd paid witness to over the years. An unexpected edge; the stench was not a distraction. She'd have to thank Natsu and Gray when she made it home.
Blood and brine were no bother, but the disappearing bodies most certainly were. The man with the hole in his chest no longer had a chest.
Focus!
Five down at once, and it was still there. She could see it working its way through the fallen bodies, her box not having much, if any, affect on it. She dropped her bag and crouched by it, hastily throwing up another BOX, this one around her. She had no other way to protect herself. Her only hope was that it would be too caught up in what it was doing to turn on her.
An awful thought.
More of the bodies vanished into the nothingness of the creature's presence. She swallowed. Levy had only two books that would serve, and she pulled both out while trying to ignore the gory chaos around her.
Her own blood was ice, and her stomach a rolling pool of magma-hot acid. Her hands shook as she turned the pages, pulling her glasses from her bag and sliding them on her face.
Not fast enough, not fast enough. Page after page she turned, not finding what she wanted. What she needed. Then, two-thirds of the way through, she thought she found something. With her pen she drew runes on her arms and legs.
"Écriture non-vie."
Based on Freed's spells, but altered ever-so-slightly to better fit her own self, she used the rune magic to write unlife onto her skin. Giving her the appearance of a non-living thing, and – again, hopefully – erasing her being from the monster's senses.
With a quick, entirely guilty glance at the fallen City folk, Levy dropped the BOX around her and the ineffective one around … well, nothing. Nothing at all. No body. No blood.
She did not scream.
That was important to her. Be brave, she told herself. No one to cover for you. No one to help. Be brave.
She ran back to the mayor as quickly as her two short legs could carry her. The door was open, and the old woman was pacing in the foyer.
"Five dead. Men, old women. No more rules," Levy forced the words through her heavy breathing. "Everyone out. Best case, still … few hours, maybe even a day until help arrives. Can't wait. Need … need people gone. Now."
"I can't go if people are still here," the mayor snapped. "And if we all go, how will we know when it's safe to come back or if you need help." From her tone of voice, the second was less important.
Levy coughed and waved a hand. "Communicator."
She handed the microphone-sized word to the mayor, making a second for herself. "When it's over, I'll contact you. Until then, leave. I have traps to set."
She had no plan. Well, that wasn't really true. She had no good plan. No safe plan. No plan that any of her friends would approve of; risky. Making herself bait and relying on shields she had already watched fail.
Back to the streets she went, headed for the Sea/Overland intersection. Most of the deaths had taken place west of Overland. She thought that might allow her a moment or two of extra time. Maybe.
As she ran for the crossroads, she whispered words. Dozens of them. Maybe even hundreds. Her lips were moving with barely a thought. Whispers of speed and luck and safety, safety, safety... For now, at least. Soon enough she would have to abandon safety.
Such a fantastic plan.
When she reached the intersection she tossed down her bag and spread her arms. "Shield!" The word was large, covering the whole of the intersection. She pushed it into the road itself, waiting for the monster to fall into the trap. For twenty feet down each down each stretch of road, Levy drew large symbols representing concepts like best path and chosen path and only path. Five feet beyond those she wrote one way.
It would not turn, would not leave, once it had entered her territory.
Pen out, she covered her body in runes, replacing those of unlife with the brightest beacon of life she could pull out of her magic. She called the creature to her with her self and her power, and she trembled. Fear. Exhaustion. Stress. Anger.
She wanted to add to the pattern. Wanted something to connect her to the creature, but she was still unclear on its desires. There had to be something more to this than the spread of terror or, or, or dinner. Something not quite as simplistic as a monster. Too many dead and too quickly. There had to be something more.
Her skin was blackened by words. Blackened and sparkling. Magic and knowledge. She was afraid to die. Afraid she had overreached herself. She could have emptied the city of her as well. Leaving it trapped, alone, while waiting for help to come.
But no, she chose to face this faceless beast alone. She was an idiot.
Her skin burned. The words seeped into her, out of her. She turned from her own body to the road beneath her feet. Roads were good for rune traps. Clean lines for clean rules.
She began.
It wasn't purposeful, the mixing of her blood into the magic. Dangerous thing, but it was near to impossible to stop what had already started.
What had already started?
When had she begun bleeding? Blood? There was blood, she remembered blood (so much blood), but that blood wasn't her own. This was. This came from her body, dripped from her nose. She reached up to touch the flow, distant. Distracted.
A wave of dizziness swept over her and she staggered back along the lines she had drawn into the road. Her head swiveled on her neck – left, right, forward, back – and waiting for her when she finally steadied was the monster.
An outline and no more, but it chilled her through skin and bone and soul. She could see a score of dead spread out along the air, a stench that could not be erased by the wards holding it back. Drawing it near and holding it back.
Holding. Holding. Please, please, holding.
She stood. It "stood". She faced it. It "faced" her.
Now, to work.
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Author's Note: Took a little longer than I thought. Sorry about that. Next one should be a hair faster to release. And hopefully not quite as short.