“Juan Carlos! I expressly forbade you from risking your life! If I could, I’d rip that blasphemous magic from your very hands.”
He’d always nodded his head, a respectful ‘Si, abuela’ almost a mantra to him by the time he was ten.
But now, as he ran beside Py Dar behind a troop of undead soldiers, charging the vampire blockade before them, he couldn’t help but scream his defiance. He couldn’t tell if he was defying the vamps trying to kill them or his abuela. All he knew was, on the verge of death, he had never felt so alive.
Flames flickered in his hands and he activated his Stoke Skill, flaring them as bright as a campfire. As the front line of ghouls crashed into the bone constructs the sanguine had erected, he tossed four fireballs over their heads in quick succession.
He had discovered after the first blockade that the bone material they used in their structures was especially susceptible to fire and the big ghoul had instructed him with a gesture to give it his all.
At least, he thought that was what the ghoul leader was saying. They’d only realized after Terry and Ben left that none of them understood the ghouls. But it didn’t take a genius to recognize that vampires were bad and ghouls were good.
Feeling like he’d been given the green light, he finally leaned into the powers he had been deprived of for months before Terry’s arrival. He’d always loved fire—would stare into the campfires his family lit nearly every night during the fall and spring months. When he’d gotten older, he’d even stolen a lighter from his abuela and lulled himself to sleep by lighting it over and over again under his covers.
That had ended disastrously and the campfires had stopped for a time.
Once he Awakened though, they couldn’t stop him. Fire became his constant companion. He’d worked so hard on improving his skill that by the time he was E-ranked, he could maintain a fire in a jar inside his school backpack. He’d learned to keep it smoldering in low oxygen environments, a constant companion during a time when he felt so alone.
When he’d been summoned and had no access to fire, he’d spiraled into a state of depression. There were times when he considered simply walking out into the blizzard and ending it once and for all.
Only the thought of how his abuela would react when he never returned kept him going, day in and day out.
And now…now he had reunited with the flame. For the first time in his life, he was given free rein—not only to possess the flame but to unleash it.
As his fireballs crashed against the hastily constructed bone ramparts, he angled the fire to splash up and around, licking at the dry sanguine skin. He could feel the fire catch, the screams of the vampires cutting across the distance, stabbing into his ears.
It didn’t matter; they had attacked first. They prevented Juan and the ghouls from their goal.
They are standing between me and my return home.
He was going to burn them all.
The flames answered his call, dancing from sanguine to sanguine, searing a path through the resistance with ease.
When the ghouls crashed against the bulwark, the vampires were already in disarray, the bone constructions visibly weakened from the fire. There were no ghoul casualties as Juan, Py, and Chippy raced through the gap, hot on the heels of the Bloodsplatter Clan.
Spears stabbed into those still alive and Juan collected his flames with a flex of aura. The fuel of their flesh kept the fire healthy, vibrant, ready to launch at whoever got in their way.
In the distance, he spotted more sanguine rushing to form a defense at another chokepoint created by the natural formation of stone.
He pulled his fire in tight, a terrified, excited grin stretching across his face.
For the first time in his life, he felt powerful.
The four of them portaled to the next layer’s waypoint without incident. They found themselves on a jutting column of rock that was surrounded by darkness on all sides.
Terry immediately began reaching for the next layer, extending his aura through the rock along the path imparted by Crimson Spear.
Unlike when he had been to a location before, he had to stretch his senses by feel. Striking straight down wasn’t enough, since the next waypoint was off center of their current location. But the aura visions from the ghoul elder weren’t like the coordinates of a map; they were more sensations and feelings than hard directions.
Still, he knew he’d find the correct spot eventually. It was just a matter of searching until something pinged in his senses that reminded him of that familiar point.
With his attention fully on his aura, he hadn’t realized that Mara-Lin-Jaid was breathing heavily, great heaving gasps that echoed in the empty dark. He flicked his eyes toward her, wondering if he was hearing the beginnings of a panic attack.
That was when he noticed Ben swirling his aura in a way that could only be preparation for an attack. Al’Ruzan held a spear he’d been given by one of the ghouls after his defense of their spawnling, his eyes ranging not out, but up.
He paused his search, looking up to see what had them concerned. With his attention diverted, he finally heard the sound that had only been a soft susurration in the back of his mind.
The sound of thousands of wings flapping filled the air above them.
“Hurry up,” Ben hissed.
Terry turned back to his task with a start, diving into the search for the next layer’s waypoint with a sudden urgency.
It was difficult to lend his entire focus to the job when it seemed now that all he could hear were those wings. An irrational belief that they would suddenly dive and dig claws or teeth into his back kept pulling his attention away.
Focus, Terry…focus.
He took a deep breath, holding it in for a four count, before slowly exhaling it for another four count. As he took in another, the air around them chilled.
Ben’s aura swirled like a hurricane, frozen air turning into a storm of icicles that spun about them. It was like they were the eye of a localized blizzard on their jutting column of stone.
Secure in the knowledge that Ben was working their defense, he let himself sink into the task, picking up his aura from where he’d left off.
Mara-Lin-Jaid sent out a message to Al’Ruzan and said something alien out loud to Ben, but Terry didn’t let it divert his attention.
His aura swept across the next layer, finding plenty of pockets of space that he was fairly certain were open air. But none of them triggered that memory passed along by Crimson Spear.
In the back of his mind, he felt more than saw, a wave of bat-like creatures crash into Ben’s ice storm. They were as large as dogs, but more animal than the sanguine that had attacked them in the chasm earlier.
Though the storm slowed many, dicing them with crystalline ice, a few thuds sounded around him, signaling that some had also pierced the veil and were in range. In his peripherals, he saw Al’Ruzan stab forward with lightning speed, piercing heads and launching the dead bodies over the edge in a single movement.
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His aura ranged wider, passing over a space that gave him a sense of deja vu. It was a strange sensation, since the sensory inputs of his aura were vastly different than Crimson Spear’s decades old physical memory of this layer. But after a moment to verify, he was certain he’d found their next waypoint.
“I got it!” he cried out, reaching through space to open a portal.
Ben simply grunted as he launched an icicle through the air, spearing one of the bat creatures through the wing. As it plummeted out of sight, his aura intensified, the swirling storm pushing out with greater vigor.
The portal whooshed into existence a moment later and Terry called out to Al’Ruzan and Mara-Lin-Jaid.
“Go!”
They didn’t need to speak English to understand the command. Al’Ruzan gripped her hand and jumped through the portal. The tug on his aura made him flinch.
That much mass across his maximal distance was more draining than he had expected.
If only Jaid had listened and stayed back…
Ben glanced over, waving for him to go first before launching another icicle that intercepted a diving bat creature.
Terry didn’t need to be told twice and leaped through. Turning back, he watched for the moment Ben would arrive, prepared to cut off the portal as quick as possible.
When the man leaped through, it was with one of the creatures latched onto his back. Terry gasped in surprise, cutting off the portal.
Ben didn’t panic at the attached creature, instead reaching up calmly with one hand and ripping it free. It squirmed and shrieked in his grip, until he grabbed its neck and twisted it violently.
The earsplitting cry cut off instantly.
With the portal gone, there was no light to illuminate their surroundings. Terry used Master of Light to brighten his own vision, then immediately gasped.
Two red eyes peered back at them from the other side of the cave. It moved forward, bringing the rest of its body into stark relief.
At first, his brain refused to process the creature. It seemed to defy his understanding of what biology was capable of. Mismatched limbs carried it forward, a long, lumpy tail trailing behind. Its jaw appeared to be made up of two different creatures, the top half long and pointy, while the lower half was wide with large tusks arcing out.
He realized that it was like the patches back in Wichita. But instead of human, ghoul, and other parts, it was an amalgam of Underworld creatures.
Once the moment of surprise faded, he felt his breath catch and he lifted his hand to draw the others’ attention.
“Uh, Ben…”
His uncle turned to follow Terry’s finger and the creature took that moment to pounce. As it lunged toward Ben, the man reached his hands up on instinct and grasped its mismatched jaws. The weight of its leap sent the two of them rolling, but Ben came out on top, his hands turning blue-white as ice began to coat them.
Two cinderblock-sized ice gauntlets rained down on the creature, causing it to scurry away with a hiss. At first glance, it seemed like it had nowhere to go. But as it reached the far wall, it scaled the rock, perching high up like a sunbathing lizard.
“Go!” Ben hissed.
[Ben]: Go!
Al’Ruzan and Mara-Lin-Jaid got the message, turning to the only exit from the creature’s lair. It was a narrow slit in the surrounding rock, just wide enough for the creature to slide through.
Terry followed behind them, not willing to abandon Ben to the creature.
He watched as it leaped from the wall, moving incredibly fast for its size. Ben met it with a colossal ice-encased hand, smashing its face to the side as it just missed colliding with him.
“Come on, Ben!” Terry cried, his voice echoing through the cave.
Ben raced to the crack, but instead of slipping through behind Terry, he turned and stirred his aura.
“What are you doing?”
But as soon as the words left his mouth, the wall of sleet formed in the chokepoint, closing off the creature’s access.
Even through the forming blue-white wall, Terry could see the thing stumbling to its feet. The ice was forming at a supernatural pace, but it was obvious it wasn’t thick enough to hold under the charging weight of the huge beast.
Terry reached for his own aura, his senses forming a connection with space nearby. As the creature spotted them through the thin ice wall, he prepared to form a bridge through that space.
Ben pushed more aura into forming the ice, but seemed to realize at the last minute that it wouldn’t be enough. He abandoned his magic and anchored his feet, bracing for impact.
As the creature leaped through the air, a portal cut across space directly in its path. He felt the impact of its bulk pull at his aura, then resist. With a start, he realized that it was only partially inside his portal, its back legs and tail visibly struggling outside of the blue-white oval.
More and more aura was pulled from his reserves and he could feel it struggling, resisting the portal with its considerable aura and physical power.
“Shut it!” Ben barked.
Terry went to sever the connection and in turn sever the creature in half. But as he tried to pull his aura away, the beast somehow kept it open, its sheer presence blocking the portal from snapping shut.
In all the time he’d been using portals, he’d never felt someone keep it open against his will. Then again, he’d never had someone stuck half-in-half-out before.
He pushed more aura into the construct, willing it to slam shut on the wiggling creature. Its struggling intensified and he saw it slowly pushing its way back out of the oval with its hind legs.
More aura rushed in as he gritted his teeth.
This is my portal. I’m its master, not you!
He thought of Marlon, the sheer finesse coupled perfectly with the raw arrogance. That was a piece of the man’s personality, he realized; a part of the mastery was the arrogance. The unalienable belief that you were the master of space, not whoever passed through it.
He pushed harder, feeling the portal tightening, the framework collapsing. His mind flashed to his fight with Al’Ruzan, that micro portal snipping across one of his digits.
This wasn’t any different than that in concept, only in scale.
More aura rushed in and the edges of the creature began to part, the oval cutting into its flesh.
He couldn’t hear its cries of pain, but he could imagine them as its kicking became desperate. As the last of his aura poured into the portal, he took a step forward, willing it to shut once and for all.
The blue-white oval snapped closed, bisecting the creature like a headman’s axe. Its lower half flopped to the floor, still kicking as intestines and blood oozed out.
Silence reigned in the dark, except for Terry’s heaving breaths and the still-scrabbling claws on the stone ground. A hand touched his shoulder, making him flinch. Before he knew it, he was reaching for his aura, readying a portal to slice through the new assailant.
His eyes snapped to Ben’s face and he pulled back the attack in surprise.
“It’s over,” the man said softly. “Well done.”
The aura drain suddenly pulled at him, sapping his limbs of strength. He found a nearby wall and sagged against it.
“I think I’m spent.” He didn’t want to admit it, but slamming the portal shut on the creature had taken most of his aura. “I need to recharge before I can send us to the next layer.”
Even in the dark, he could see Ben’s nod.
“Take your time, Terry.”
The man turned toward Al’Ruzan and Mara-Lin-Jaid.
[Ben]: Al’Ruzan, can you scout the surrounding tunnels? We don’t want to be caught by surprise while Terry recoups.
Terry half expected the Duelist to buck against being ordered, but instead, Al’Ruzan inclined his head, then took off into the dark.
Beside where he had been standing, Mara-Lin-Jaid stared toward Terry with arms crossed.
[Mara-Lin-Jaid]: That was foolish. You should have let the A-ranker take care of the beast. Now we will lose precious time waiting for you.
The vitriol in that statement imbued him with a fury he wouldn’t have thought he had the energy for.
“Foolish!” he demanded. “Foolish? What about you, huh? Didn’t see that one coming, did ya?” He scoffed, turning away. “The dead weight has the gall to call me foolish.”
[Mara-Lin-Jaid]: Whatever recriminations you have for me, it doesn’t make my words any less true.
She waved a hand toward Ben.
[Mara-Lin-Jaid]: He was never in any danger. In that chokepoint, with his powers and physical attributes, it would have been a quick fight.
Taking a step toward him, her eyebrows rose.
[Mara-Lin-Jaid]: Instead, you burned through all your power and we are forced to wait here while you recover. Perhaps those precious minutes are the difference between our friends surviving or falling to the sanguine?
Anger fueled a renewal of energy and he burst to his feet so that they were face-to-face. Caustic words lingered on his tongue, then died out.
With a sigh, he closed his eyes.
He felt Ben approach, the calming weight of his hand on his shoulder.
“Her bedside manner’s atrocious.” He paused. “But she’s right. I would have beaten that thing eventually.”
Terry felt something loosen inside of him, some hold on his chest that he hadn’t realized was there until just this moment.
“I know she’s right,” he said to Ben.
With a shake of his head, he crafted the message that made his nose furrow.
[Terry]: Okay, you’re right. I see it now.
She nodded so matter-of-factly that he felt his annoyance flare. As she turned, he gripped her arm.
[Terry]: But here’s something I was right about: you’re dead weight on this mission.
Her eyes trailed down to his grip, then up to his eyes. Perhaps she thought that stern look might have deterred him some other time. But she’d given him the hard truth, so he’d dish it right back at her.
[Terry]: So far, you haven’t given us one useful insight. Everything I’ve ever heard you say hasn’t been until after it would have been relevant. On top of that, you can’t defend yourself like Al’Ruzan or I can, meaning we have to actively protect you when we should be going on the offensive.
He released her arm, shaking his head.
[Terry]: As far as I can tell, your visions are as useful as flipping a coin. I mean, come on, giant Frankenstein monster didn’t come up at any point?
Her steely gaze stared back into his eyes, not a flicker of doubt to be seen. She turned and approached the nearest wall, resting her back against it and sliding to her heels.
[Mara-Lin-Jaid]: Time will tell.
She closed her eyes, leaning her head back.
[Mara-Lin-Jaid]: Wake me when we’re ready to move.
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