Scarlet Dusk (33 page)

Fighting them, even more than casting against them, was proving a useless effort. The therions learned quickly that biting into the corpses was more unpleasant for them than the horde, and any other attacks only served to remove a few of the horde from an equation that seemed to spring two in the place of every fallen. Even worse, any attack that
didn’t
render a corpse immobile only served to remove pieces, which, though they hardly seemed to notice, was creating another cloud of toxic rot that was steadily choking the three.

Nikki was beginning to run out of ideas when…

Guys,
Serena’s voice chimed in their heads,
Zane’s in trouble;
big
trouble. Maledictus took the fight outside, and I can feel him preparing for something. Whatever you’re facing now is happening outside on a much larger scale, and if we don’t take him out
now
then all this is going to spill out across the city
.

Nikki frowned, looking back and focusing her thoughts to Serena,
It’s an army! A damn horde of corpses! My magic is only making them stronger, and if Maledictus’ is powerful enough to do
more
of this than I don’t think we have much chance of stopping him, let alone an even bigger army of these evil, dead bastards!

Then we gotta keep Maledictus from getting any stronger!
Serena called out, coming around the corner behind them and starting towards them at a full sprint.

Nikki wasn’t sure if she wanted to kiss Serena or kill her. Showing up when they needed her most was a
definite
perk, but…

“How in the hell are we supposed to keep Maledictus from getting stronger?” She shouted across the hall as Raith and Isaac fought to hold back the horde of corpses.

“He’s a death-wizard, right?” Serena asked, catching up to them. “So we don’t die; we don’t die, we don’t let Zane die, and we don’t let Maledictus claim a single other life to add to his tank of death-energy. Now move!”

The three obliged. Serena could see each of their auras spiking as they noticed the chainsaw strapped to her back and, with her entrance and everything at stake, decided that it was best to do as she said.

Using her aura to push the horde back—condensing them in the narrow hallway—she took a sharp inhale and drew back her arm, replicating the act of firing an arrow from a bow.

For so many years she had used the motions she’d learned as a little girl in archery to
also
direct her auric attacks, often losing a great deal of respect from those who saw it followed
immediately
after by a greater swell of admiration at how effective it was for her. Envisioning her aura as arrows and “firing” them from an imaginary bow had become so engrained in her muscle memory that her subconscious, at a young age, had begun to create a bow-shaped anomaly within her hand, until the day came when the act became so much a reflex that anybody capable of seeing auras was certain that Serena
was,
in fact, wielding a shimmering, semi-translucent purple bow with matching arrows. Training herself further, she’d learned to manipulate this even further; taking control of the “arrows” after they’d been fired through a target to move them, or fabricating other weapon-shaped anomalies with her aura.

Now, however, she was calling upon something far greater…

Focusing all of her auric control, Serena Vailean closed her eyes and allowed the dull-gray orbs occupying the darkness to be mapped out; giving her a sense of each and every corpse that was shambling within the hallway.

Three auric threads snaked back to each of her friends as she began to draw some of their energy in an effort to further fuel the attack, and the energy in her hands grew as her aura swelled and vibrated in her hands…

“Nikki,” Serena spoke in a low tone, forcing herself to remain focused.

“Y-yea?” Nikki answered, uncertainty saturating her voice and her aura.

Serena let out a deep breath and prepared to release the attack. “Just promise me that you’ll catch me…”

Just hold on, baby. Just hold on a little bit longer…

Nikki had barely registered what Serena had said before her left hand opened and released the auric “bow string.”

Serena had tried to describe the process to her a while back, and, though Nikki couldn’t see auras and, for her, it simply appeared that Serena was firing make-believe arrows at her enemies. Granted, they were make-believe arrows that Nikki had
watched
pierce and pulverize many enemies, but, unable to see the process with her own eyes, she had simply come to trust the process as Serena’s own.

This time, however, was far more jarring.

As Serena’s hand opened, the room went alive with a roar like static that made Nikki want to cover her ears. However, as Serena had warned her—albeit rather suddenly—her hands were needed.

The skull of every corpse occupying the hallway whipped back then, the eyes of those that still had them peeling back in a mockery of shock a split-second before every one of their heads erupted under the force of the attack.

And Serena, eyes fluttering, fell back into Nikki’s arms.

Zane rolled free as Maledictus’ foot came down for a kill shot, leaving a crater in the pavement where his head had been.

“Hold still, you cancerous nut-wart!” Maledictus growled, “Just let me kill you so I can move forward with my fucking life as the devil this world deserves!”

Zane glared at him, rolling to his feet and standing. “You were a devil to me and my friends, Maledictus,” he narrowed his eyes at the Leiche, unbuckling the stifling and constricting leathers and letting them fall to the pavement. “And you’re even dumber than I thought if you think for one fucking second I’m going to let you be a devil to anyone else ever again!”

“We’ll see,” Maledictus leered.

Zane let his fangs extend as the memories of the past few years rolled in his mind; each and every horror he’d woken up to and been forced to take responsibility for due to the being inside of him that now stood before him. All because of that damned relic and the binding taroe tattoos that he’d been tortured with enduring when the curse had been set. Every time he’d lost control after that, those tattoos—channeling the energies through the taroe’s enchanted ink—would begin to glow, and he’d grown to despise the tattoos as a symbol of what was lurking beneath his flesh. Now, however, facing down the monster and everything he represented, Zane realized that the tattoos didn’t need to represent his curse or his rage…

They could represent his perseverance.

They could represent his survival.

They could represent
him
.

And, seeing the potential for a new world
without
Maledictus, he smiled.

“Thank you,” he said, sincerity catching both Maledictus
and
himself off guard.

The Leiche staggered and glared, “The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Zane nodded, pulling off the black tee-shirt and tossing it along with the other gear, finally taking pride in letting his tattoos be totally visible for the world to see. “Just that: ‘thank you.’ Thank you for giving me the chance to
personally
square off against everything I ever hated about myself.”

In the back of Maledictus’ mind—deep down where the auras of all those he’d killed were kept, teeming like fine wine in a rocking chalice—he felt something churn, and he could swear he heard applause.

A necessary tragedy.

A necessary tragedy.

He growled as the marine’s words echoed incessantly in his mind, and he felt his blood go hot with rage at a realization that he refused to let come to light.

A necessary tragedy.

“Come on, Serena!” Nikki chanted, patting her friend’s cheek and feeding more and more of her magic into her, “Come on, girl, we need you up. We gotta go help Zane!”

Serena’s eyes fluttered open, “H-huh? Zane?” She sat up like a bolt, feeling a fresh wave of vitality from whatever Nikki had been feeding into her. “Jesus H—Nikki, my sister from another mister, there is some serious juice in what you’re packing there!”

Nikki’s aura settled then as she smiled and shook her head, “Yea… well, after the show you just put on I had to do
something
; might not have been as badass as all that, but…”