The scattered horde of the dead eye fiends had vanished from where Julie had first been enthralled. It had not even been an hour and there was not a body to be found, only the lingering blood that stained the sand.

  “We’ve seen this before,” said Charlemagne, bending down and dragging a finger through the bloodstained sand. “More eye fiends show up and carry away their dead.”

  “Why?” asked Jack.

  “We’ll ask the big eye when we see him,” said Arc, ascending the tallest of the mounds. “No doubt he’s watching us right now.”

  “You’re sure you want to go through with the plan?” asked Isabella, looking up to him with Julie still hanging limply over her shoulder.

  “I trust you’ll keep them safe. I have a rough idea of where I’m going.”

  Arc shot one of the few remaining nearby windows, smashing its glass to a thousand pieces. Many of them fell inside the building, while others tinkled down, bouncing off the outcropping ledges before settling atop the sand. With a wink to the others, Arc drew in a breath.

  “Eye of Gra’shiya!” he roared out. “My name is Arc the Hawk and I demand you face me.”

  “I hate this plan,” muttered Jack.

  “I’m not a fan either,” said Charlemagne, reaching up adjusting his red mohawk so that it sat perfectly straight, only for it to fall down again seconds later. “But we’ll see how things play out. Something tells me that friend of your is cunning.”

  “He’s a great shot, he’s fast, and he’s got the brains to go along with it…usually. That doesn’t mean I want him baiting the lion within the lion’s own den. We’re stronger together.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Damn,” said Charlemagne, scratching his stubbled face. “And he still lets you accompany him through the hellscape that—”

  “Eye of Gra’shiya!” called Arc once again. “You are a spineless coward, you bloated extraction of a whore. If you are too afraid to face me, I understand.”

  From within one of the collapsed skyscrapers flew an eye fiend that flapped straight towards Arc. The spellslinger let out a sly smile. So far, so good. As the fiend came within a few yards of the spellslinger, he raised his revolver and shot it, felling it instantly and sending it tumbling to the bottom of the mound.

  “Whoops,” said Arc, spinning his revolver around in his hand. “My finger slipped.”

  With the death of the eye fiend, the batting of leathery wings welled up and dozens of the flying watchers appeared. The swooped down from out of the buildings, took off from the rooftops, and curled around the rubble, all aiming for the one standing atop the mountain of sand.

  “All eyes on me,” muttered Arc with a small smirk. He shot his remaining five rounds, taking out just as many fiends and then reloaded his gun. He sprinted down the hill, leaving the others’ sight while drawing the eye fiends away.

  Fearing Julie would be able to relay their words to the Eye of Gra’shiya, Charlemagne silently signalled to Jack and Isabella to follow him. He ran away from Arc, leaving him to distract the fiends while he guided the others towards the hospital.

  He charged into an alleyway, deliberately taking the slower, but less-open, route in case the Eye had left a few lingering spies. Jack kept to the rear, letting Isabella carry his sister on ahead. The young man looked over his shoulder and saw nothing following him. He prayed Arc would be alright, but he had faith that the spellslinger would find a way to escape and would meet them as the hospital before long.

  The three hurried along, seeking as much cover as they could along the way. Charlemagne charged through a door, knocking it off its hingers and then stormed through the back room of a shop before emerging onto a main street. He led the way into a largely sand-filled underpass with just enough room to walk through while crouched. Isabella was feeling the strain of carrying Julie, but she dug deep and didn’t utter as much as a grunt, determined to get the young girl to safety.

  Not long after, Charlemagne pointed up ahead at a building with a large sign out the front that read ‘New Carlington General Hospital’ and then led the way up the road. There was no sign of the eye fiends, nor the Eye of Gra’shiya. As far as they could tell, they had made it without the lord of the city knowing where they were. Now, they had to find out what happened to Alfonso and Logain.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Charlemagne stepped through the broken glass door and looked over to the reception desk. Above it hung a sign that showed the main wards nearby and the ways to follow to reach each of the wings. Deciding it was useless, he hopped over the desk and searched for a map of some kind that would give him a better lay of the land.

  “Charlie,” said Isabella, pointing to the elevator a little way into the corridor.

  “As insightful as you are beautiful,” Charlemagne replied as he walked around the desk and headed for the elevator.

  Beside it was a map of the floor. Its colour was faded, but it was legible enough that he could make out ninety percent of the text and only a little less of the layout.

  “Where are we looking first?” asked Jack, keeping an eye on the door for any eye fiends.

  “There’s a list,” said Charlemagne, looking to Julie and then lowering his voice. “We start with the pharmacy, followed by the intensive care unit, and then we search the surgery department. If all of those prove to be a bust, we go room by room until we find a sign of either Alfonso or Logain.”

  “Not to be morbid, but…”

  “Yes, if we find their bodies then we’ll wait for Arc and make for Cliff Town. You don’t need to tell either of us how dire the situation is, Jack.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s fine,” said Charlemagne. “Let’s get cracking or we’ll still be looking this time tomorrow.”

  *

  Arc sprinted for dear life through the streets with at least a hundred eye fiends following him. The Eye of Gra’shiya had taken his bait and he couldn’t have been more pleased. Well, he wouldn’t have minded if the fiends would spontaneously drop dead and saved him the hassle of killing them, but he would take what he could get.

  He knew it was only a matter of time before the Eye realised he was bait. Perhaps it already knew and didn’t care, but he would have to face the swarm before long. The Golden Hawk was in his hand and its cylinder was loaded with a spell cartridge that he knew all about, but had never used. He hoped his inexperience wouldn’t be his undoing.

  Glancing over his shoulder, he could see how spread out his foes were. He needed them to group together or he was in trouble. He darted for a side street that funnelled them closer together, but it was still not enough. He needed them as close to being in a row as he could manage. His lung were burning as he ran and his muscles felt like they could explode at any moment. He had no more time to waste. He needed a destination.

  “There,” he thought to himself, seeing an old railway tunnel over a wall.

  He leapt over the wall and landed on the platform before dropping onto the buried rails. He ran inside the tunnel and found a rust-eaten train lying here, not having been used for decades. This was good, the train cut down the amount of empty space nearby. Arc ran until he reached the end of the train and spun around with the Golden Hawk raised.

  “One hundred feet,” he said as the swarm sped towards him, much more tightly knit than they had been outside. “Come on. Come on. Go!”

  He pressed his finger on the trigger and the cylinder glowed blew as the spell exploded down the barrel. A crackling stream of lightning erupted from the muzzle, fizzling through the air and frying eye fiend after eye fiend as it shot in a perfectly straight line. As it moved, the fiends just outside of it were struck by small offshoots of electricity, zapping them and either killing them or dazing them to the point of falling to the ground. The bolt petered out after one hundred feet, leaving no fewer than sixty of the fiends dead and another two-dozen twitching on the ground, clinging to life. The ones left were now a much more manageable number of around thirty.

  Arc shot six times with his revolver, killing more foolish fiends that continued to pursue him. “I can keep going,” he told them, knowing that their master would hear his words. “You think that was my only spell? You utter imbecile, servant of Gra’shiyra. I’m coming for you and there’s nothing you can do about it. Count your remaining hours because I will find you and make you pay for your atrocities.”

  The fiends faltered just long enough for Arc to reload his revolver. Deciding that they had not been punished enough, they lunged for him, talon-first, aiming to stared deep into his eyes and bring him under the thrall of their master. With a wink, Arc shot another six and then switched his gun for a knife.

  He ran towards the lingering remnants of the eye fiends and stabbed each of them in the air. They were scattered and separated enough that he made quick work of them and did not suffer as much as a single cut. Once he was through with them, he patrolled the tunnel and squashed the last of his living foes on the ground underneath his boot.

  “Good riddance, you vermin,” he said scornfully. He pulled out his spellcaster and loaded another cartridge into the sole empty chamber.

  The Lightning Strike spell he used was the only cartridge of its kind he had possessed, so he hoped that any further eye fiends sent his way were in much smaller groups. While it was not a devastating spell in terms of the damage it could do to a single opponent, often struggling to fell anything sturdier than a human, it was hard to beat for crowd control. The remaining spells in Arc’s arsenal were ones that would be much more useful against lone foes or smaller groups.

  Hoping that the Eye of Gra’shiya had believed his bluff that he was going to hunt for it, he walked from the tunnel with a smile on his face. He now had to try and find his way to the hospital, but that first meant finding his way back to where he had first come from; no easy task as Arc had paid little attention to where he was going, running with the express purpose of giving Jack, Julie, Charlemagne, and Isabella a clear path to the hospital.

  “No matter,” said Arc, hoisting himself onto the station platform and then climbing over the wall to reach the street. “A walk through the city will give me the chance to see if any more fiends are keeping an eye on me. I suspect the answer to that is yes.”