Steven Montano - Black Scars

All three spirits in the chamber bristled at one another’s presence. They pulsed and prodded, tensed their ethereal skin and pricked each other with sharp tendrils of arcane power. The air was volatile. Cross felt like he stood near a pool of gasoline with an open flame in his hand.

“ Hello, Lucan,” Cradden said to the captive warlock. “Do you remember me?”

Lucan Keth’s eyes opened, but only just. If he recognized Cradden Black, he made no sign of it.

“ Why is there only one vampire?” Cradden asked.

“ We had trouble. We crashed.”

“ Yeah, I saw that…”

“ Any idea how that might have happened?” Danica pressed.

“ Nope.”

“ You know, you could’ve helped us out. Bro.”

“ It wasn’t my problem,” Cradden said with a shrug. “You were told to get all of the merchandise to us on time. That was your job. Sis.”

Cross lost track of Keegan. The shotgun-toting mercenary vanished after he’d led them into the courtyard. Cross scanned the area. He couldn’t remember if the man had moved on through the massive room, or if he’d turned and gone back the way they came. There were plenty of felled columns and statues and bits of shattered stone debris that he could hide behind in the chamber, but he just as easily could have slipped away into one of the alcoves, as well.

Cross manifested his spirit. Rather than gather her into a wad of volatile energy, Cross tried to slip her stealthily along the walls. If he could, he’d use her to locate Keegan, as well as any of Cradden’s other men who might be hiding nearby.

“ Where’s Cole?” Danica asked.

“ Where are my vampires?”

“ I have replacements,” Danica said calmly.

“ I don’t want…”

“ Gladiators,” she said. “From Krul.”

Cross thought about that in the ensuing silence.

Wait…she must mean Kane and Ekko, Cross thought. Gladiators? Really?

Krul’s gladiators were the cream of the chattel crop. They were often engineered by morphorganic technology borrowed from the Cruj. If Danica was on the level, that meant Kane and Ekko were incredibly dangerous.

It also means she lied to me when she told me they were stowaways.

Cradden nodded his head in approval. He ran a hand over his beard, and then he laughed.

“ God damn, Sis, it’s good to see you. You always know just what I want. Just like Christmas. Mom never had a clue…remember when you got me…”

“ Where’s Cole?!” Danica demanded. Her voice was so icy it might have frozen the air. Cross felt her spirit coil like a snake. His spirit did the same, but he held her back. The air was alight with hostile energies that electrified the flesh and made the air as brittle as glass. It was as if three starving wolves had been released into a room with just a single piece of meat.

“ All right, Sis,” Cradden said with a smile. “All right…Syn!” he shouted.

Cross couldn’t find Keegan. It was difficult to keep his spirit focused in that whorl of aggressive arcane energies. She was difficult to keep in check even on a good day, and Cross felt his control slowly slipping as the spectral tension mounted.

Two horses ambled out of a dark alcove behind Cradden and into the chamber. Both of the horses were black and difficult to make out. For a moment Cross thought the riders floated in the darkness.

Both of those riders were female. One, the captor, had long dark hair tied into a top knot, and a pale and anemic face. She wore leather armor beneath a long Hussar’s jacket that she let hang open, and she had a number of blades arranged on shoulder and belt straps. The most significant blade, a katana made from black metal, she held to the captive’s throat.

The captive was a short, pale woman dressed in dark clothing that was covered in grime and soot. Her feline eyes were frightened, and her dark hair was pasted to her skin by the gag wrapped around her mouth. Her hands were bound behind her back, and a number of discolored bruises on her face made clear how she’d been treated. She bit down on her gag and said something unintelligible.

“ It’s okay, Lara,” Danica said. Something in her voice was almost ready to break.

“ Let’s have them,” Cradden said.

Danica glanced at Cross. He stood just a few feet behind and to her right. The look in her eyes was almost desperate. Cross knew then and there that she would do anything to get Cole.

And that means trouble for the rest of us.

“ You know if you do anything stupid,” Cradden said, “Syn is going to cut Cole’s head off. It’ll be quick, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be painless. And if Syn somehow misses — and she’s won’t — I’m sure Gregor told you about our shooter, Mercer. He’s out there somewhere…only you don’t know where.” Cradden smiled. “And he doesn’t miss.”

Maddox, the Doj, took a few steps forward. He was trying to gain position on Cross. He stood maybe ten giant’s paces away.

Cross casually moved his fingers behind his back. His spirit rolled against his hands like waves of crystal heat.

The horse whinnied, disturbed by something. Cross looked behind them just in time to see Keegan move out of the shadows with a machete in his hand. He had high ground as he crept along the edge of a fallen statue of what appeared to be a lupine mage.

Cross held his spirit ready. He knew he wouldn’t be able to channel her before Keegan’s machete split his skull, so instead he swung his shotgun like a club. The stock caught Keegan in his wide jaw and knocked him off of the statue.

Everything happened at once.

Danica’s spirit exploded in a torrent of cold wind, a flow of force that launched itself like a giant snake. It wrapped around Cole and shielded her from Syn’s blade, which bounced away from Cole’s neck instead of slicing straight through it.

Cross leveled his shotgun and fired. Syn and her katana exploded in a bloody spray, and the corpse fell from the rearing horse before the beast ran off into the darkness. Maddox and the other horse tripped each other up for a moment before the angry Doj hacked the interfering animal’s head off with his preposterously huge blade.

Cole was on the ground, held and cushioned by Danica’s spirit. A shot rang out in the dark, followed by another. Cross didn’t see where the first landed, but the second bounced away from Cole as it struck Danica’s invisible shield.

Mercer. The damn sniper.

Cradden howled with rage. His spirit lashed out at Cole as a phalanx of razor blades. Cross channeled his spirit into a storm of wind, grabbed Cole and telekinetically pulled her away. Not seconds later a thousand sizzling blades sank into the earth where she’d been.

Dead voices pressed against Cross like cold steam. His lungs turned to ice and filled with frozen vapor. His spirit and Cradden’s spirit collided in a burst of obsidian shards.

Cross pumped the Remington and shot Maddox in the stomach. The giant doubled over and fell to the ground. Cross pumped another shell into the chamber and fired at Cradden. The pellets caught Cradden in the shoulder, throwing off his aim as he fired his own shotgun, but not by enough. Danica fell with an arm clenched around her ribcage.

The spirits tore at one another like spectral wolves. Keeping his spirit under control tore at Cross’ mind. The gnashing wraith-like teeth of arcane ghosts made the air brittle and explosive. Stones in the walls shifted in place and threatened to tear away, and the shadows bent unnaturally, melted into caustic darkness. The air throbbed and grew thick. The spirits’ power was too much: they pulled at the very fabric of reality.

We have to get them under control. They’ll kill us all if we don’t.

The world seemed to tilt. The walls bubbled and expanded. Shadows swam over Cross’ eyes. He heard a chorus of dead whispers, an incessant song filled with dry-throated voices. He felt sharp dust, like he’d breathed in a cloud of glass.