July 1st 2013, Grimwood House, Dublin, Ireland 5:00 AM BST
Gaunter, much to my surprise, didn't seem particularly excited by the idea of finally getting me to deal. He grimaced at me. "You know, you're highly aggravating. Even when I win with you I lose. You couldn't have accepted a deal BEFORE the end of this world? Not to mention I see you've somehow integrated Sanguine Rose. I know it was destroyed like you said, I'd have been able to tell if you were lying, so I'm a bit curious about that."
"Is that the payment you want for helping us?" I asked quickly. "Because I can tell you how I did it."
He grimaced. "I wish. But sadly, no. As much as I would like to benefit personally from this, the situation has become a bit complicated. Mostly by THAT." He pointed at the calmly standing Faceless One. Despite its seeming inaction, paying close attention I could feel some kind of energy building, though for what I had no idea.
"You said the Faceless and you were playing a game, and that they cheated." I pointed at the newly born god. "Is that the cheating you meant?"
"It is," he said with a sigh. "Specifically, the ripple effect of my earlier deals in this realm were a bit more extreme than predicted. The creation of devils led to the construction of a book in your possession, the Spells of Astaroth. About two hundred years ago a Necromancer got their hands on the book and used it as a basis for a new magic system. Or rather, as a bridge to accomplish something new that had never been done. He created a flame that could destroy souls."
I blinked. "The black burn? That's it? That doesn't seem that important."
"Foolish child, the black burn consumed spirits meant for the cycle of reincarnation," he spat. "It's basically stealing from the universe. The deities in charge of this world were supremely unhappy with its creation. In fact, they were SO unhappy that I had to nudge a few key players to lock the crazy bastard up in another dimension after he figured out how to use the magic to create a false true name for himself."
"Wait, The Unnamed?" I asked. "That was the Necromancer who created the black burn? And why does any of this matter? Why is it important to stopping the Faceless?"
He grimaced. "Because the Faceless are creatures of unmitigated destruction. Their ejection from this plane was accomplished by essentially rejecting their essence entirely. Outside their true bodies, the world intent here considers them anathema, and when they show up, they're forcibly removed by any means necessary. It weakens them immensely when they take a host.
"The problem is that the true name that Voldemort put on that body is inverted. It's the opposite of a real true name, a thing of life, and is a thing of death. While this is anathema, its an anathema that is allowed by the world intent. Which means that in that body, the Faceless isn't experiencing any of the rejection, and is essentially using its full power." He snarled a series of emphatic curses before whirling on me. "This is why I tried to get Grindelwald to erase their whole ridiculous cult. Though admittedly, I assumed you would be able to stop Voldemort."
I just glared back. "This is all fascinating, but I don't know why its relevant right now. Can you help or not?"
"I'm getting there, you impatient child," he snapped caustically. "Short answer is no. Long answer is kind of. See, I'm ALSO not exactly welcome here. I haven't been ejected, so as long as I don't fuck with the natural order too much I won't be suppressed. That's why I trade in unique and hard to find objects rather than just empowering beings directly. Unlike the Faceless, I have some degree of subtlety."
"Except now they don't have to," I pointed out. "Because you fucked up and accidentally butterflied them a perfect host they can use to exert their full power. So help me fix it! Hell, even if you don't care about the world, you're about to lose. You HATE losing!"
There was a rumble from the sky as thunder roared ominously, and Gaunter's eyes flashed red. "I KNOW what I hate," he hissed. "Don't tell me my business, godling. If you and the others like you had done what you were supposed to none of this would be happening. The problem is that if I intervene directly, I'll get ejected, and by the way, anything influenced by my presence will come with me. This means you."
I flinched. That meant…I might have to leave. My peerage would come with me, sure, but my friends and family wouldn't. Or at least they didn't have to. Maybe I could ask them? It didn't matter, now wasn't the time. I'd worry about that later. For now we needed to stop this. Although there might still be hope in both cases. "You're a god or something," I pointed out. "Shouldn't you just be strong enough to ignore what the big guys here want?"
The power the Faceless One was gathering had begun to coalesce into a sort of dark aura, an almost gaseous substance that jerked and whipped through the air unpleasantly. I didn't know what it was doing, but I somehow doubted it was a positive thing, whatever it was.
Gaunter, sadly, didn't like having his weakness pointed out. "Think, boy," he snapped at me. "You're a deity now yourself. What are your limits."
"I mean, I don't have many," I shrugged. "Inside my dom-" I froze. "That's the problem isn't it. This is their domain. You don't have one here, so you would need to forcibly smash it with your magic." My face split into a wide grin. "That's why you're dragging your heels. The deal you need to make, it's not me making one with you its you making one with me. You need me. I have a domain naturally formed in this dimension. I'm a local so the universe doesn't reject it."
It was his turn to smirk. "It doesn't reject it YET. Like I said, if I use my power me and everything connected will be forced out. I can channel my strength through your domain, let you fight the faceless on even ground, but doing so will begin the process of infusing your domain with outsider power. You'll cease having your current protections, and have to leave."
Which amused him. Gaunter was a pernicious dick. He liked deals with a sting in the tail, just to be contrary. Knowing his "help" would force me out of my world might not be enough to make him happy with the situation, but he would consider it something of a silver lining.
I spat in outrage. That bastard. He was going to get screwed and was forcing me to get dragged down with him. For having been so smug a second ago I was feeling pretty pissed. This was why I hated dealing with Gaunter. Like he'd said about me, even when I won I lost. At the very least, seeing how upset I was seemed to soothe some of his ego driven anger, so he wasn't likely to completely screw me even at his own expense just to salve his pride. Small miracles.
Still, this was nightmarish. I was getting whiplash from interacting with Gaunter. I couldn't tell what was his real reaction and what was a ploy to get me to slip up. Hell I couldn't even tell what had been a ploy to get me to THIS point. Maybe this was his whole fucking plan, and every interaction we'd had was carefully curated to reach this exact scenario.
Not being able to trust my own read on things was particularly awful for me, given my strong reliance on my instincts. Which had been annoyingly silent about this conversation, just to add insult to injury.
I was pretty sure I could see some hidden amusement behind Gaunter's eyes, glee at how much I was overthinking this and how I was twisting myself into knots. So, I decided to stop. In the end, I had to save my friends and family. It didn't really matter if this was what Gaunter wanted me to do. If he'd engineered this all to put me in this position then it was his victory, because I only had one way forward.
"If I do this," I said slowly, eyeing the still strengthening Faceless One. "How long would I have? Would it be instant? You said I'd begin the process. How long until I'm rejected by the world intent and have to leave? And what happens if I don't.?"
He shrugged. "I can't say what will happen. You aren't exactly a skilled deity. Your domain leaks all over the place. You'd be suppressed as long as it was active, and since you don't seem to be able to turn it off you would most likely attract the ire of some sort of local champion or chosen one. The world intent often acts through intermediaries, be they spells cast by the deity themselves or third parties. As for how long…depends how deeply you need to tap into my power, the more you use the faster it will happen. Based on the strength that thing is gathering…I'd say probably three or four days."
"And this isn't going to leave some sort of corruption in me?" I asked suspiciously. "Allow you to like…take over my body?"
He rolled his eyes. "I don't want your body, boy. I've got a perfectly fine one of my own. The problem with lower beings is you think everything is about power. Power is only important to those who don't have any. When you're truly strong, you don't need to scramble for more. You find yourself in search of a higher purpose."
"Like…amusing yourself?" I asked caustically.
He grinned at me. "Precisely. You'll understand someday, if you don't die first. Regardless, the power you'll be borrowing is temporary. It should massively increase the size of your domain, true, but you'll still need to fill it with the power you generate on your own. It'll give you a huge boost in potential but once the effect fades from your current self you won't be much stronger, just maybe a little bit more…expansive."
Glancing back at my friends and family, I felt my gut twist. Because like I'd thought earlier, I had no choice here. This thing could destroy the world, and I wasn't allowing that. I liked the world. All my stuff was here.
"One last thing," I clarified. "I want passage off world. Now that I know I'm going to have to leave, I want you to help me and anyone else I decide to bring reach another realm. Specifically, I want you to take us to Draconic Deus." The name of the world the evil pieces hailed from had been included in the booklet, and honestly, if I had to leave here that was the next best destination.
Devils existed and had a society on Draconic Deus, and I would be able to find peers. Maybe someone could teach me a bit more about demonic magic. But more importantly, having a faction to rely on meant there was a better chance my friends and family would be safe.
To my shock, Gaunter's face lost all of its expression, the faux outrage and sadistic glee vanishing, replaced by a neutral, thoughtful look. After a moment, he nodded. "Temporary empowerment and passage for an as of yet undetermined number of people to Draconic Deus in return for using your status as a local deity to destroy the Faceless One." He held out a hand, eyes glowing. "The deal is struck."
This was the real Gaunter. An arbitrary force of nature, bound by nothing but the rules of his deal. This was the dangerous monster I'd been dealing with all along, hidden behind false petulance and smugness. Taking a deep breath, I took his hand and shook, and my head fell back as an overwhelming tide of power flowed into me, and my world changed forever.
July 1st 2013, Grimwood House, Dublin, Ireland 5:30 AM BST
The feeling of ascending to…what? Higher godhood? Well, whatever I was becoming, the sensation of it was intoxicating and agonizing at the same time. I felt like a balloon someone was inflating JUST shy of popping. My skin was tight, straining around the power inside me, but not inside me, inside my domain.
My range went from a hundred feet to a hundred miles in an instant, and the overwhelming avalanche of information pouring into my brain should have fried it, but somehow, it didn't even make me blink. I was everywhere, nowhere, and everything in between.
Every speck of oxygen, every particle of dust, it was all me, all at once. I had a thought, a casual thought, and suddenly I was gone, and then I was somewhere else. Whereas before I could teleport, now I was just…there. Sometimes I was pretty sure I was in two places at once, being left behind and at my destination at the same time, but only for an instant.
When I realized where my thought had taken me, the electrical impulse I'd ridden from one spatial coordinate to another before the thought finished conducting down the neuron, I wasn't at all surprised to be standing in front of the Faceless One.
"WHO!" Came the psychic scream of disgusting mental filth. It didn't speak, it had no mouth, instead, it shaped depression and horror and misery into the vague outline of language and hurled it outward in a cacophonous explosion of emotional sewage.
I frowned at it. "You don't have to shout," I said reproachfully. "I'm right here." And then I punched it.
Well…I say punch. But it's hard to really categorize the difference between a thrown fist and the kind of power I was using at this point. When I was using my hundred foot domain I'd been able to draw on the power of everything inside to fuel my power. My magic, sure, but also my physical strength.
The same was still true, but the orders of magnitude of difference between my power reserves before and now was so absurd I literally couldn't quantify it.
I threw that punch with all the power of a billion billion atoms, with all the force of the stored potential energy of the entire city of Dublin and every person in it. I was a GOD. Not a mini god with a small domain that only reached a few arms lengths, a deity whose domain incorporated an entire fucking CITY, hell, more than that, nearly one third of the entire area of Ireland, one of the most magical countries in the WORLD, a cradle of magic whose origins stretched back to the dawn of sorcery.
The Faceless One went into fucking orbit. Or at least, a few dozen miles up. Orbit, I knew from just existing, was about a hundred and fifty miles up, and I wasn't going to let him get that far, since I'd lose access to the Irish leylines if I did.
I met him at about fifty miles and stopped him cold with a brutal stomp to his stupid blank skull. I was about to strike again, but his hands flashed up and grabbed onto my leg like a vice grip. The energy he'd been gathering for…whatever, exploded into me, channeled through his palms into the most destructive mystical power I could imagine, some kind of…unelectricity that sucked the vitality from my body.
"FOOL!" came the explosion of hate and rage. So I kicked him in the dick. It didn't do much, but it was satisfying, and it got him off me and sent him flying away from me. I didn't aim him at the ground, since the Faceless Ones could pretty much punch out mountains, but I needed some distance.
He stopped midair about a mile away, and despite his lack of face I could tell he was studying me. I grinned at him. "Watch your step there buddy. Almost seems like you might have been drinking. That's it, you're cut off."
My staff came to my hand before I could even call, and I whirled it around me in a dizzying pattern, channeling all the power of Ireland and smashing it together with the fucking OCEAN of demonic energy, giving voice to the intent through my world as a thousand cutting curses so fucking overpowering they severed SPACE split the horizon like a jigsaw puzzle. Not just head on either, my domain surrounded him, and the attack poured in from everywhere.
The clouds, the sky, the fucking stars, even the light of the coming dawn, it all fell apart as my power shredded the world like cardboard in a woodchipper.
Long chalky hands blurred as the Faceless One brought his own power to bear, and a horrible sickly light met the shredding space, melting it like popsicles on a hot day, somehow destroying the very destruction I rained down on him. Despite his absurd power though, he couldn't catch it all, not with me launching those attacks from all around him through my domain.
Gouges tore themselves out of his flesh, repairing as they did, but the intent from my cutting curses wasn't that easy to deal with, and the cuts returned, severing over and over even as the vessel knitted back together.
"Not enough then," I spat. "How about this?" My staff whirled, and above me formed an emerald dragon, a serpent of green flame the likes of which I'd never dreamed of conjuring. Not just Fiendfyre as I normally called it, but a condensed beast of the cursed blaze, each scale representing as much compacted destructive power as a thousand of my old Fiendfyre serpents.
The dragon roared, launching itself at the Faceless One, and the monster expanded in the air, muscles bulging obscenely as the chalky skin split under the strain. The grotesque muscular proportions and increased height let it meet the dragon head on, and its hands smashed into the foreclaws of the beast, its flesh catching fire but not really burning.
As I watched, the cuts continued to tear themselves open, and the dark light resisted the green flame, keeping it burning but not consuming, like trying to light fresh wood without drying it.
Snarling, I snapped my fingers, and every scale bloomed with a design. Runes wrote themselves across the dragon, runes of heat enhancement, of destruction, of suppression. I enchanted the construct like it was a bar of silver, and it held the magic effortlessly, because this was my domain and my intent was all that mattered.
The Faceless One screamed in the psychic spectrum, jerking and struggling. I snarled at the lack of destruction of its form though. This vessel needed to be annihilated, otherwise the Faceless One could stay, could come back. I needed to leave soon, and I wouldn't leave with this abomination loose in my homeworld. I called out to the moisture in the air, creating another dragon, this one of water, that manifested behind the evil god.
Water coalesced from nothingness, drawn into an ever condensing form. The heaviest and most acidic water I could imagine, a PH in the negative double digits, triple digits even. It burned the air around it, hissing and spitting as it eroded the fabric of the world.
With a thought, I drove it forward, smashing into the back of the monstrous deity, and the thing howled in hate and pain as the indescribably powerful water spell and the unquenchable cursed flames sandwiched it and burned it in a bath of the most corrosive, horrendous steam I could concoct.
The flames, imbued with demonic energy and originally cast with the native magic and not my own, were hellfire, and the water was empowered with every scrap of intent I had.
Even as it burned and boiled I hurled another storm of severing charms, the cutting intent mine and passing harmlessly through my beasts and tearing into the monster with every bit of savagery I could find, tearing it apart instant to instant as the cuts ripped into its colossal form.
But it wasn't enough. Burning, frying, boiling, slicing, it was all more power than I'd even conceived of, but it wasn't ENOUGH. The Faceless One healed, over and over, body repairing as its unnatural tenacity slowly won out over the damage. As its form adapted, it slowly overpowered the water dragon, driving the flame beast back with an earth shattering punch thrown with a dark light wrapped fist.
The energy was building again. He was burning some of it to fight me, but he still hadn't stopped gathering it. The process had slowed during the early parts of the battle but it was slowly picking up speed again. He was going to perform a summoning.
I knew as well as I knew my name that I couldn't allow that. The native gods would reject the Faceless, but there were a LOT of Faceless. One of them couldn't fight back, but if the whole horde came through, they could overwhelm the native rejection, once that broke they would conquer or destroy this universe within days. They were hungry, and angry, and REAL vindictive, and they wanted this world to BLEED.
Which I obviously couldn't allow. I let the water dragon fade. "You know," I said conversationally as I called the flame dragon to my side. "I've been thinking about this for a while. But I never had occasion to try it. I don't honestly know what this is going to do, but I'm almost positive it's going to fucking SUCK for you."
Reaching for the dragon, I cast another spell. A black flame leapt into being in the core of the beast, and the green flames and black sparked and clashed, unwilling to occupy the same space. Fiendfyre and the Black Burn. Complete opposites, a flame that destroyed the physical and one that could annihilate the soul. Normally they couldn't mix, it was absurd, but then, most people didn't have the secret ingredient.
My demonic energy flowed into the dragon as the black flame blossomed, my domain forced the two to interact, again and again they clashed, even with the one size fits all demonic power to bridge the gap. But I kept trying, a thousand, a million attempts to bridge the divide in moments, fractions of an instant giving birth to a billion variations, until finally, something clicked, and the two warring magics melded together under the influence of my demonic power.
The Faceless One stopped, the gathering power slowing for an instant, and from its overwhelming aura of horror, I felt a new negative emotion. Fear. And I knew why too. Above me, the dragon I'd summoned had shifted, the colors running together as the flame changed form to become something entirely new.
A vibrant purple fire that almost hurt to look as radiated a sort of conceptual discontent as the dragon became sleeker and more brutal, the manifestation changing without any input from me as this new fire sought to express its unbearably destructive nature in every aspect, even its physical form. I grinned sending the new dragon, made of what I was mentally calling Devilflame, winging toward the monster.
It turned and ran. Spinning in place it pushed off the air, space cracking as it tried desperately to escape…but obviously that wasn't happening. This was my domain, and nothing could escape. It ran right into the dragon as it appeared in its path, and the body sank into the beast like a rock falling into a lake. A few ripples and then…nothing.
I stared, not sure what to do with that, a bit underwhelmed by the lack of ending. There was a brief pause, like the world was holding its breath, and then the dragon EXPLODED, and some kind of…force was blown out into the world.
The force faded quickly, but I caught it. Divine energy, or something like the opposite of it. Whatever passed for the soul of an undying monster god. Except not undying. Not anymore. Because what I'd just felt were the death throes of the Faceless One. It was over. I'd won.
July 1st 2013, Grimwood House, Dublin, Ireland 6:00 AM BST
I only had a chance to celebrate my victory for a brief moment before the power left me. It wasn't gradual either, my earlier balloon analogy continued to be valid as the outside strength drained from my domain, allowing it to deflate into…mush.
It was actually strange, because I still HAD a hundred mile domain. Kind of. I just couldn't really pull anything from it, and even trying to teleport within the space was difficult, like swimming through cement. The flight I'd been using, luckily, was wing based, so I didn't just drop out of the sky, but I barely had the energy to descend, and I might have hit the ground a bit harder than I'd have liked.
My peerage was there before I touched down, surrounding me warily as they looked at Gaunter, at the vampires, and at anyone else who might have been a threat.
"Ryan!" Suzie shouted worriedly as she rushed over to support me. "Are you ok?" I was feeling a little woozy, and while my staff helped, it wasn't enough to totally offset the immense feeling of weakness. That had been…insane. The power, the understanding, the sheer…weight of it all. And the best part was, I still had it. Not literally, I was extremely weak now, but the bones of what I had been a minute ago were there. I could recover to that state eventually, even if it would probably take me years.
I shook my head blearily, clearing the slowly building fog. "I'm fine," I said after a second of processing. "I just…I need a minute. That took a lot out of me."
Gaunter, standing nearby, laughed. "You could say that. Not a bad showing, kid. Especially that flame at the end. Even I felt a little threatened. You pushed it a bit far. Any further and you might have permanently damaged yourself. That might have been fun to watch." His eyes flicked up to the gathering clouds in the quickly darkening sky.
It was nominally around dawn, but the sky was blacked out with roiling storm clouds. I grimaced up at them. I could feel a sense of threat. "That's the rejection?" I asked him quietly. I knew I didn't need to shout. He could hear me.
"It's gathering surprisingly slowly," he said with a casual nod. "I'd give you seven days before we need to be gone. Not sure if that's a reaction to your diminished state or some kind of reprieve from the local gods, but it's a bit more time than I expected. Guess you a whole week get to say all your goodbyes and figure out who's coming with us."
I was honestly a bit surprised he wasn't trying to go back on the deal now that everything was done. But thinking about it, Gaunter wasn't the type. That was the game, after all. He'd find a tricky way of screwing you over, but the only way he got to really enjoy himself was if there were real stakes. If you delivered on your end, he would hold up his, even if he didn't want to. Otherwise, what was even the point?
After meeting my eyes, he winked obnoxiously and then…he was gone. Not teleported, just not there anymore. I rolled my eyes, then turned to Daphne, who had taken up a position on my other side. "How is everyone? What's going on with the necromancers?"
"They're retreating," she said with a wide smile. "About nine out of ten zombies dropped when you killed Voldemort." She shot a glower at Val, who looked ashamed.
I just laughed. "For future reference," I told my Queen. "When killing a mega lich with a giant fuc- off god murdering sword, probably take the head. Don't worry, it was my first time too, so I'm not holding it against you." My face fell. "How about losses, did we lose anyone?" At the downcast looks, I felt my blood chill. "Who?" I asked softly.
Tracey, who was close by let out a choked sob. "Professor Flitwick," she said raggedly. "He was killed by a necromancer. I took it out after but…they hit him with some kind of death curse. I couldn't fix it."
I clenched my hands into fists so tight my nails split my palms. Flitwick. I'd bonded with Amelie, but Flitwick was my first mentor. He'd taken note of my talents and helped me develop my Charms work. The little half Goblin was a brilliant duellist and a personal friend, and his loss hit me harder than I'd have expected. Spending years seeing him every day had slowly gotten me used to him, and the thought of going back to Hogwarts and knowing he wouldn't be there…
But then, I wouldn't be going back. Not really. Maybe once to pick up my stuff, but I had to leave this world behind in just a week. I had so many places I wanted to go, people I wanted to say goodbye to. How do you say goodbye to the world you were born in?
"You heard Gaunter," I told them as I forced myself to focus on the present, pushing down the sorrow and disorientation. "We have to leave in a week. I know not all of you will want to come, but given our connection I don't think you have much choice. That said, I've arranged passage with Gaunter off world, and he's going to be bringing anyone I want along. If you have loved ones you want to invite, make sure to do it soon."
They all looked mostly sanguine about the big change. "Tracey grabbed Shaggy by the arm, pulling him close. "I've got my guy, so I'm good. Especially since Daph is going."
Theo and Hannah were both fine. They weren't super close to their families, and were just planning to say their goodbyes. D.B, Shaggy, and Scooby all seemed hesitant. "Like, I think we have some people to invite," said my hippy Knight. "Our best friends since we were kids, Fred and Velma. If we're leaving, we want to give them the chance to come with."
"I'm good," said Blaise with a shrug. "My relationship with my mom is complicated at best. And no way do I want to bring her to some kind of demon world. She'd either get murdered in five minutes or take over the world and enslave us all."
Tanith snorted. "I'll probably invite Ghastly, I assume Val will want to bring Amelia and Sirius, and possibly her parents."
My Queen shook her head. "Not my parents. They're not…they're happy here. I'll say my goodbyes. I have to close up Gordon's place. Maybe I'll leave it to my baby sister. Skulduggery, you going to invite China?"
The Skeleton detective mulled it over for a bit, but finally nodded. "I can't rightly imagine a world without her. Though if anyone tells her I said that I'll leave them on the moon."
"Well, I'm inviting my mom and I guess Rosmerta," I said with a laugh. "And with all of us gone…I guess Andi is going to be taking over house Black. Assuming Sirius agrees to come with us."
Val snorted. "He spent his whole life in prison for a crime he didn't commit, Amelia definitely won't let Suzie leave without her, and she's pregnant. Not to mention me, there's less than zero chance that Sirius is going to stay. That said, I'm a bit worried about their aging. We can't just take the stone with us, right?"
"We might be able to," I argued. "Especially if we invite Flamel and his wife. Could be useful having the immortal alchemist around, and given his enthusiasm for experimenting on the Sanguine Rose, I somehow doubt the old man would pass up the chance to explore a whole new world."
As much fun as making travel plans were, we had other things to worry about. I looked around, finding Vincent and Alucard, and flew over to them. It felt sluggish, I'd already gotten used to just being wherever I wanted in an instant, and even at high speed, traversing space again SUCKED. I couldn't wait to refill my deflated domain and regain at least some of my abilities. Granted, it would take me years to completely refill it to the density I'd had it before, where I could sense and draw on everything in my range, but just basic travel? I only needed enough power to fill up the outline.
Vincent, luckily, was doing much better. He wasn't in GOOD shape, since I'd used Fiendfyre to cauterize his guts, but he was alive and awake, and that was something.
He grinned wryly as he saw me approaching. "Well, hail the conquering hero. That was a prodigious fight, my young friend. I also have to thank you for keeping me from shuffling off this immortal coil."
"Yes, thank you," said D.B emphatically. "He might be a cryptic old bat, but he's OUR cryptic old bat."
"Speaking of old bats," I said, glancing over to Alucard. "Thanks for the assist big man. You gonna keep up this goatee warrior look long term? It's very posh, but I think I'd kind of miss the coat and glasses. And the hat. That's a sick ass hat."
The coldly dignified vampire melted, literally, as darkness covered his form and then sloughed away to reveal Alucard in all his big hatted red coated glory. "Well, have to give the people what they want. Besides, I can't keep up that big fang Dracula swagger long term. The sheer preponderance of bitches on my dick would be unfair to all the other men."
"You world thanks you for your service," I said dryly. "Did you happen to catch my conversation with Gaunter and the others?"
"The super loud one you were having in the middle of an empty battlefield?" he asked dryly. "Not a word, no. But on a completely unrelated note, if you're blowing this popstand I'd love to come along. Our Master mentioned heading for Draconic Deus last time we saw him. Be nice to catch up with the old man. And if not, maybe I can get my own set of evil pieces."
Vincent nodded. "I too am interested in exploring our world of origin. I'm afraid after so long presiding over the Scholomance, I don't have many friends left in this world. Nothing holds me here except this degenerate."
"Awww, I love you too Vinnie," Alucard cooed at the sorcerer. "You were always my favorite brother."
That got an actual smile from Vincent. "I'd be more flattered if I hadn't known the rest of our peerage. As siblings go, the bar wasn't set particularly high. Still, I suppose having you along for a journey isn't the worst fate imaginable."
We helped the sorcerer up, and Alucard looped Vincent's arm over his shoulder (which required wings being extended because he was SO much taller) and we went to meet up with everyone else. Thought the mood became much more somber as we recognized the devastation the battle had wrought.
Dumbledore was with Flitwick's body, and when we arrived, he told us he'd been waiting for us. As his favorite students, he'd thought we might like to say goodbye before the cremation. We did, Tracey and I kneeling next to the small form of our teacher and friend, thanking him for everything he did for us.
When that was done, he called Fiendfyre and incinerated the body. Apparently Flitwick had very strict instructions on how to dispose of his body, based on some goblin customs that proscribed burial. Something about corpses polluting the ground where only treasure should be.
After that, we began the slow process of discovering all the fallout, and cleaning up the battlefield outside of Val's house. Based on my observations, it was going to take all day, but I wasn't complaining about wasting one of my seven. This was an important thing to take care of, for all of us.
July 6th 2013, Grimmauld Place, London, England 6:00 AM BST
"Are you sure you have everything memorized?" Sirius asked Andi for the tenth time. "Because I can write it all out. Honestly, it took me like two years to dig up all the family account books and identify where my mother left everything. I don't want you to have to do it all over again."
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, Siri, I got it. It's all up here, and everything is fine," she tapped her temple. "You can go in peace. Please. Leave me alone."
Despite her flippant words, her eyes looked sad and hurt. Andi couldn't come with us, she had a job and a husband and a daughter, both of whom had lives. Sirius, after his long incarceration, had pretty much nobody except me and Val. And Harry, but he was coming with us. Once he found out Gabi was going we couldn't keep him away.
"It'll be alright Andi," said Amelia with a warm smile. "I'll keep him out of trouble. You'll see us again someday, I'm sure."
Unlike my peerage, Amelia had no soul connection to an alien god, nor did Sirius. She could theoretically visit, though travel between planes like that required an Ultimate Class devil. Once we reached that point I would be able to send them for a visit, and they could use a ritual to be summoned back.
That said, I was a ways off Ultimate class. It would take me years to reach it. With my expanded domain, I'd get there eventually, guaranteed, but it was going to be a long, slow process.
The last five days had been frantic as hell. While I'd have liked to say my goodbyes in a peaceful and heartfelt way, having only a week meant we had to scramble to finish all of our business before we were forced to go. Wizard bullshit, sorcerer business, and even vampire nonsense, we had all sorts of loose ends to tie up before we were whisked away to Draconic Deus, so we'd been busy non stop.
First we'd had to handle everything on the wizard side. Most of that was Sirius and Amelia's matters, with the latter having recently been picked to be the next Minister of Magic. Luckily she had also recently gotten pregnant, and she was able to use the baby as an excuse to turn down the office.
As a replacement, we'd badgered Dumbledore into taking over. We'd invited him along, but the old man was determined to see Hogwarts through to the end of his life, and since we were all going to be gone, we'd guilt tripped him into FINALLY accepting the office.
On the sorcerer side of things, Val had been insistent on trying to rebuild the sanctuary as best she could before leaving, not wanting her family left alone in an ireland completely overrun with rogue magic users. Admittedly, the cradle of magic that was Ireland was actually somewhat diminished by me tapping into it during my fight with the Faceless, but the leylines around the Irish Countryside were still miles beyond almost any other country pound for pound. More power meant more sorcerers, and that meant more danger.
Luckily, Tanith still had friends in the English Sanctuary, and we'd made arrangements for them to help hold the territory until the Irish Sanctuary could get back on its feet. Ghastly, unfortunately, had decided he was necessary to its continued survival, alongside Dexter Vex and Saracen Rue, the other living members of Skulduggery's old war unit "The Dead Men".
Tanith had been understandably saddened by his decision to stay behind, but she wasn't the type to get weepy over a guy. She wished him luck and spent the next several days helping make introductions between the London Santuary's current head, Frightening Jones, and the new Irish council of elders.
On the vampire side of things, with Alucard and Seras both leaving, there was a lot to handle. While Zellman was the strongest living vampire, he and Phantomas were also recluses, and rarely interacted with other bloodsuckers. Alucard, being the youngest and most talented of the three masters, had been the most active in the community, and had been not only the linchpin of control for most of the vampire population, but the most notable active deterrent for the wizards and sorcerers to keep them from fucking with the older vampires.
Given the wizards and their penchant for racism, there was a non-zero chance they would forget their reasons not to declare war after a decade or two, and given what we'd seen of the elder population, the chances of the wizards winning that fight were pretty slim. Obviously with Dumbledore in charge, it wouldn't be happening soon, but we wanted to make sure everything was handled long term.
Which was why, at Seras's urging, I'd decided to found the first World Supernatural Council. Vampires, Wizards, Sorcerers, Werewolves, Fae, we'd invited most of the different species to take part, and with our current lineup of muscle none of them had been willing to say no.
We'd used magically binding contracts to ensure peace once we left, but it had been a necessity to establish some kind of overarching order.
We'd actually gotten lucky. Voldemort had been making inroads with all the more oppressed supernatural communities, trying to roust them to action, and had mostly succeeded…at which point he'd become a lich and killed most of them to bring them back as undead. With all the upper ranks of their societies depleted, the supernaturals were substantially more open to joining a ruling body who could help them keep the peace.
Bran Cornick, the werewolf alpha from the US, and Sylvester Torquil, a Duke of the Fae from the San Francisco area, were both pretty enthusiastic about signing up. Ghastly was the Sorcerer rep and Dumbledore took up the position of council head in his capacity as the Minister. Zellman had even agreed to come out of retirement for a century or two to help the council solidify its power, so strength wise things were looking good.
Which brought us all to Grimmauld Place, for one final dinner. With all of us leaving and having no idea when we'd be back, we'd decided to gather the families and say goodbye. We'd been pretty upfront about the devil thing at this point, because with my powers, even diminished from what they were, not much was a threat to me, plus we'd be gone soon anyway.
Stori was here, and she'd be coming with us, unwilling to leave Blaise, but her parents were staying behind, and they were both worried about their girls. Anna and Daphne had never gotten close, but Stori and her stepmother had really bonded after the girl got better, and Cyrus doted on both his daughters, so knowing they were leaving forever was pretty rough on the family. Luckily, the news had been somewhat softened by another, equally shocking bit of info.
"I can't believe you're pregnant," gushed Rosmerta as she and Anna commiserated. Apparently they knew each other, with Rosie having left Hogwarts the year Anna entered. "When are you due?"
"February," the Greengrass matriarch said sheepishly. "I'm only two months along. We only JUST found out, and were going to announce it in a few weeks, but, well…" she smiled sadly. "I'm just sorry Stori and Daphne won't get to meet their sibling." She beamed at the girls. "I know we haven't always been close, but I'll miss you both."
Stori, turning to glare at her sister, cleared her throat, and Daphne sighed dramatically. "I'll miss you too," she told Anna grudgingly. "You've been good for dad, I guess. And you're not so bad."
"Who, slow down," I joked sarcastically. "At this rate you'll leave me for her."
I couldn't resist cracking up when my poised Slytherin Princess stuck her tongue out at me, and we all enjoyed a bit of a joke at her expense. Harry and Hermione were both here, as was Ron and the twins. Harry and Hermione were coming with us, but Ron had decided to stay behind. In the end, despite his occasional jealousy, he loved his family, and he didn't want to leave them all behind.
Hermione was going to be apprenticing under China, hoping to learn the book collector's symbol magic and translate it into proper wizard enchanting (her words), though I caught a few blushing glances that convinced me she was planning to extend our fun time arrangement as well.
D.B and Shaggy had convinced their friends Fred and Velma to come, and the two of them were taking the reveal both better and worse than expected, with Fred mainly in denial and Velma trying to catch us all in some kind of trick to prove magic wasn't real. After the first few times it didn't work she seemed to be getting quieter and more intense, so I suspected she was about ready to believe.
It was, in short, a chaotic, wonderful, ridiculous night, with all of us enjoying ourselves as much as we could before the trip out tomorrow. Sadly, all good things must end, and after a delicious meal cooked by Daisy (who refused to even hear about staying behind) we gather in the front room to say goodbye for the last time.
Daphne and Stori hugged their parents, we said farewell to Dumbledore and Andi, and everyone left Grimmauld Place for the final time. Andi would move in after we were gone, with Kreacher staying behind to help at my request. But for tonight, it was just us. After a round of subdued goodnights, Fleur, Daphne, Suzie, Seras, Natasha, and I all piled into the giant king sized bed in the guest room we were staying in, too distracted to fool around, just holding each other and drifting off to sleep.
The next morning, we were all quiet and a little morose as we rose the next morning, packing everything up and taking a circle to the field outside Grimwood House where we'd arranged to meet Gaunter. Val gave the old house one last look of sad but fond farewell, and then we settled into wait.
Gaunter himself showed up around noon, fading into existence under the dark clouded sky, and when he glanced up at the clouds the thunder rumbled ominously. The overcast weather had followed me to London and then back (which had been VERY confusing to the locals according to the weather channel), but it had been gathering in intensity for the last day or two, and acknowledging it seemed to piss it off.
It was as if the world was saying "All right, you had your downtime, get the fuck out of my house", which I supposed was fair. I wouldn't want a strange god in my universe either.
Gaunter seemed unaffected, snorting at the clouds before turning to me. "Alright then, you ready to go? I'm not staying in Draconic Deus, and I'm not planning to get too close either. I've arranged for someone to meet us at the edge of that world's slice of the dimensional gap to receive you, and once you're with them that's my part of the bargain fulfilled, understood?"
I nodded, not arguing the point. I honestly didn't want to be around the tricky god any longer than I had to be anyway, and him leaving before we reached the new world, as long as we still had a safe guide, was pretty much ideal for me. My instincts didn't warn me of any funny business either, so I was pretty sure it was fine.
"Alright, well, I suppose it's time to go then," he reached into a jacket pocket, withdrawing a small, antique hand mirror. He flipped it open and then tossed it into the air. The mirror stopped, hanging in space for a moment, then expanded, enlarging to the size of a fairly large doorway. "Come along then, no time to waste." Without looking back, he strode into the mirror, vanishing in a ripple of glass. Glancing at the others, I nodded encouragingly, and then followed him inside. Just a little longer, just a quick trip (hopefully) and we would officially be in our new world.
July 6th 2013, ?, Dimensional Gap,?
Stepping through the mirror was an odd experience. It was kind of like sucking in really hard, but your body inhaled so tremendously that it became flat, then kept imploding until it inverted and expanded back to full size in reverse? But not inside out, more like your entire self was sucked through a pinhole and reinflated on the other side of a film of plastic wrap that was actually the skin of the world.
In short, it really fucked with my head. When I came back to consciousness, I was standing in…nothing. Not darkness, mind, but literal actual nothing. I was looking at the absence of existence, where even shadows didn't dwell.
Looking around, I could see the others, but seeing their somethingness against the backdrop of pure nothing was strange, like looking at an actor against a really shitty greenscreen backdrop. "Wow," I said as I tried to blink away the strange, deep seated dimensional version of vertigo. "That fucking sucked."
Gaunter shrugged. "The first time is always a little obnoxious. I was just a little thing my first step into the gap. If you want to shore up the space around us you can expand your domain. There's literally nothing around us to resist it, so you should be able to open it fully with relative ease."
I gave it a shot, and he was right, my hundred mile domain expanded. Whereas back home trying to open it after I lost Gaunter's boost had felt a little like trying to open a cotton candy umbrella with a bowling ball lying on top, now it was effortless, expanding for a hundred miles…into nothing.
"Did that accomplish anything?" I asked wryly. "Because we're still nowhere. I don't-" I was cut off as a sort of flicker sparked around us. It sparked again, and slowly, the hundred miles of nothing faded into a hundred miles of swamp.
Gaunter smirked at me. "The dimensional gap is the blank canvas on which all worlds are painted. Even a pathetic godling like you can establish a world in here, albeit a very weak one. Still, this will act as a vehicle for us to travel in. The gap doesn't exist. There's no distance, no time, no air resistance. You move through willpower, but having a larger vehicle will make it easier to move us all at once. Which you can leave to me."
There was a lurch, and I got a slight sense of motion, but nothing changed because the exterior of the domain was still just nothingness. With no context or benchmarks it was hard to tell if we were even moving, though I got a sensation of vast distance.
"So, you know how to get to Draconic Deus, don't you?" Alucard asked as Gaunter moved my domain through the void. "I didn't even think to ask. Do you have a map or something? The old man always made it seem like that place was pretty far away. If this is going to be a long trip I can take a nap. I downloaded the first season of Flapjack to my phone just in case."
Stori perked up. "Ooh, I haven't seen that. What's it about?"
Alucard grinned, flashing his fangs at her. "Adventure," he said smugly. "You can watch it if you want, as long as we'll have enough time."
"It'll take as long as it takes," Gaunter shrugged. "Time doesn't exist in the gap, but it exists in this domain because the kid is subject to it. He thinks there's time so there is. Because of that, the translation of real world events in the void to the timestream in here will be a bit off. Not to mention with no distance it's hard to gauge."
Daphne snorted. "You could just say you don't know."
"I thought I just did?" said Gaunter with a snicker. "In any case, I don't have a benchmark to use for comparison, but as we approach I can get a better feel for how close we are. As for knowing the way, of course I do. I've been back several times. Where do you think I keep getting the evil pieces. Ajuka, one of the four super devils of the Underworld, is a curious little pisser. He gets so excited by all the little trinkets I bring him. That's where I get half my artifacts from. Acting as a middleman between realms."
"They don't just go get stuff themselves?" I asked him suspiciously. "I mean, you can do it, and no offense but I refuse to believe you're unique or some kind of super god."
He laughed at that. "Not unique. Just a little odd. I'm a void god. That sensation you felt when we crossed over? That was how I formed my first domain. I was able to avoid attention from the local deities of my world that way, since my domain was in the void and was undetectable as it grew." He flashed his crooked teeth. "At least until it was too late. I'm more suited to void travel than most because of that. I'm making this trip look easy, but moving through the void is exceptionally will intensive, since you basically have to manifest a concept of distance in order to move yourself through it. Like if being affected by gravity required you to invent it first."
That made a certain kind of sense. It also explained why Gaunter would have needed to act through me to destroy the Faceless. If his domain was void stuff (or whatever it was called) it would have had the opposite effect the void had on mine, making it much harder to expand. I was sure there were other advantages he wasn't mentioning, but it at least explained some things.
With that out of the way though, we all settled in to wait. Alucard busted out his chess game and started playing Flamel, mom and Rosie dragged Suzie and Daphne away to talk about something, and Natasha struck up a conversation with VIncent as Shaggy, D.B, and the rest of my peerage started a game of fetch with Scooby.
I, meanwhile, pulled my book out and started leafing through it, rereading every scrap of info on Draconic Deus I could find. I was curious though, exactly why they called it that. I guessed there were a lot of dragons there.
"What the fuck is that?" A shout from Blaise pulled me out of my reverie, and I glanced up, curious to see what he was talking about. Sure enough, off in the distance I could see something…red. It was tiny, barely a pinprick, but it was notable for its presence in the blank nothingness around us.
A thought was enough to take me to the edge of my domain, and I squinted at the pinprick, trying my best to make it out. It seemed to be getting bigger as we approached, which made sense, and based on how far it was, it was probably pretty big.
Except as I waited, it kept getting closer and closer, and bigger and bigger, and it didn't STOP. Despite that, it was increasing in size oddly slowly, and the combination of the two facts, combined with finally having some sort of benchmark for movement, led me to eventually realize what was bothering me.
We were moving FAST, and we'd been approaching the thing for a while, and it still wasn't close enough for me to make out more than a splash of red. As we approached, I was able to see more. After twenty or thirty minutes, I could see the vague outline of a creature, and as we got closer than that I was able to identify colossal wings. Closer still I saw a long, serpentine neck, massive jaws, absurd teeth, and a tail bigger than most TRAINS.
Eventually, we got close enough for me to compare its size to something else, namely the giant pair of dilapidated wooden doors, wrapped in a set of massive chains. Next to THOSE, as we got a little closer, I was able to pick out the forms of entire BUILDINGS, which made it clear that the scale of that dragon we were coming towards was bigger than anything I'd seen.
I'd assumed, based on the distance that wasn't there, that the thing was the size of skyscraper or something equally ludicrous. I had NOT expected the monster to be the size of a whole fucking country. Ireland wasn't as big as that dragon, and I could confirm that because I had been the god of it for a few minutes.
"Terrifying, isn't it?" Gaunter asked, appearing behind me. We'd stopped, hanging in the void on the island of reality that was my domain, still quite some ways from the country sized dragon. Enough that I could still see it as a dragon instead of wall of scales that reached the horizon. "That's the Great Red."
I nodded, swallowing deeply. "It…certainly is." I agreed.
"Open your domain, kid, your guide is here." He gestured to the void, where I spotted a stern looking man floating at the edge of my domain, slicked back mint green hair and sharp features giving him an unreal, imposing vibe. I did as Gaunter asked, and the man appeared beside us, nodding to the void god.
Gaunter grinned at him. "Ajuka," he greeted jovially. "Thanks for meeting me." He clapped me on the shoulder. "This is Orion Black. He was the recipient of those evil pieces you gave me, and a few other unique opportunities."
A green sigil, too complicated to parse, flashed in his eyes for a moment, and his lips quirked. "Interesting," he said slowly. "Yes, I'll take this one."
Reaching into his pocket, he tossed Gaunter a small bag. The greedy deity snatched it from the air, opened it, and let a handful of dark purple metal coins spill into his palm. "Please doing business with you lot." He winked at me. "Don't worry too much about Ajuka. He's a quick study, he'll spend a few days looking you over and then you'll be free to go. Ta ta."
He vanished, his presence evaporating from my domain. Ajuka sighed, shaking his head. "I do wish he was more reliable," the cold faced man lamented. "But in this case, he isn't wrong. You are in no danger from me. I like to study anomalies, but my power makes such observation simple to achieve and relatively unintrusive. You'll be a guest at my estate in the Underworld for a few days and then we can get you settled."
I didn't argue. Couldn't in fact. This man…this THING, was the most terrifying being I had ever met. The POWER it wielded was beyond anything I'd ever seen, I stared in abject horror for a moment, and he seemed to notice my fear, frowning for a bit and then nodding. He snapped his fingers and the dread just vanished. "Nascent precognition clan trait, fascinating. We haven't had one of those in millennia. In any case, come along."
He snapped his fingers again, and my domain dissolved. Not damaged, just…undone, sucking back into me like a tape measure after you let go of the end. One moment we were in the void, and the next we were all standing on a sprawling lawn of grey green grass under a dark red sky. I felt…right. Like I was where I was supposed to be, like I was home. Not the building, but this whole world. My evil piece was all but dancing. I slipped an arm over Suzie and Daphne, pulling them both against me as I took it all in.
Ajuka dusted his hands off like he'd just done a hard day's work. "Lovely. We're here. The maids will get you settled, and after that we can have dinner. I assure you, you'll find my accommodations quite complete." Gesturing behind him, he waved a hand, taking in the entirety of the huge manor house behind him. "Welcome, new devils, to the Underworld."
I did feel welcome. Because as I took in the towering manor, the red skies, and the rest of the homey feeling world, I realized that I'd been waiting for this. Since the first day I woke up as a devil, part of me had been longing for this, to come back to where I belonged. And now that I had, I knew nothing would ever be the same. In the best way possible. Today was the first day of the rest of my ten thousand year life. And if I had anything to say about it, it was going to be a good one.
AN:/ Ok folks, that's all. I originally intended to go a bit further but responses kind of died off early on so I cut that arc, but I kept going to get to a satisfying conclusion. I left it open ended so there might be more in the future, but for now Ryan's adventures are at an end. I hope everyone enjoyed the story, and I have another YJ story coming out in a few weeks, so stay tuned!