His mace was covered in blood and brain matter, so he dropped it and picked up the club to continue up to the fourth floor.
As he topped the stairs, the building shuddered and tilted another degree. Henry’s feet actually left the ground for a moment, then he was bracing himself against the stone wall. He heard the stone building’s dying moans. He snatched his hand back as he stared at the stone closer. Thin veins of ck rot were creeping upward. He recalled the ckening of the rock where the office tower’s iron skeleton had pierced it. Was the castle dying?
He reached out and ced his hand against the stone once more. He opened his perceptions and heard more than one voice crying out in pain and taking itsst gasp. He pulled his hand away. What had Mab done to bind these people to the building? Mab was mad and surrounded herself with madness, so why was he surprised that the very stones of her castle shared in that?
He shook his head and knew he had to get out of here as quickly as he could, but not without Marisa.
So, here he was, just one level to go, plodding heavily down the beautifully paneled hall keeping his eyes on the staircase at the end.
He couldn’t hear his footsteps.
Something about that triggered a memory of his first visit.
The bedroom he’d been assigned. The room with the sound deadening floors. Silence to not disturb neighboring guests. Silence to hide Mab’s approaching footsteps.
He suddenly swung the heavy club in an arc around himself and felt its impact against at least three bodies. They squealed in pain as their invisibility dropped. Hairless, wrinkled skin the color of ashes, furless goat legs, upwards pointed ears, small dark eyes, and wide mouths of sharp teeth. Goblins!
As the illusion of invisibility dropped, he found himself surrounded by the smaller creatures. His memory of their vicious cruelty shed through his mind, and he swung the club again and again. Some managed to nick him with their des, but his club always answered by breaking their bones and crushing their skulls. He lost his grip on the club, and the remaining Goblins cheered until he waded into their midst with his fists and hooves, his rage building. The final three tried to flee, but Henry took them down against the base of thest staircase, crushing them under his hooves.
Mab unleashed another scream of rage from the floor above when he’d extinguished the life of herst Goblin thug. He nced up in exhaustion, but she didn’t appear on thending. He looked back down the hallway, and there had to be at least two dozen of the grey bastards. All dead. He looked at his hands and saw the green blood on them. His body was streaked with it as well.
While he’d avoided any dys, he needed to recharge himself. He reached inside to the tear to the realm of Wild Magic and found Mab there desperately trying to seal it. He tried to seize her mind, but she fled with a shriek at being discovered. He was stunned that he’d almost missed her infiltration. It had to have happened while he was distracted by fighting the Goblins. As he pondered how it might have turned out, he tapped into the energy streaming through the opening. It proved to be exceptionally difficult to direct the energy towards his own needs, but he did feel a little better.
He turned back to the stairs and began to climb. He smiled grimly. If this was a video game, he’d have reached the big boss level. Unfortunately, he had no experience with video games either. Whether that proved to be a benefit or led to his doom, he was about to discover.
-=-
Looking through the front doors of the old office tower, they could see the feet of the night security man sticking out from behind his desk. He wasn’t likely to be sleeping, so he was probably dead, a victim of the Sprites. The doors were thick and secure with ornate brass ted scrollwork over the tough ss.
Colonel Crane contemted what it might take to cut the door and realized they probably didn’t have the time. He looked to Roy. “Explosives?”
The big redhead shook his head and gestured to a pretty, young Asian woman in a white gown. Roy addressed her. “Meixiu, can you get the keys from the man behind the desk and unlock this door?
She nodded and suddenly turned to smoke, slipping through a gap in the door to reform into her original shape inside the lobby. Gordon stared at her as she rushed over to the security desk. “What is she again?”
“Vampire,” Roy said absentmindedly as he watched Meixiu dip behind the desk and rush back with a ring of keys. It took some trial and error, but she found the key for the lock on the front door. They went inside, and Eleanor moved forward to check on the security guard, but it was toote for the older man.
“Sergeant, do a quick inspection of the top floor and let us know if there’s a way to the roof. Be careful,” Crane said, holding the woman’s eyes. She smiled and nodded before pointing to five of her team and heading into the stairwell.
“Can we use the elevators?” Nuru asked, stepping forward.
Roy shook his head. “The elevator room would have been crushed by the castle.
A few minutester, Mick returned on her own and reported to the Colonel. “It’s a mess up there, sir. The castle has copsed part of the building’s structure. The tower also seems to have damaged the castle. Stonework has fallen into the floor below. There are gaps in the castle wall. There was… a being made of stone. I think she might have fallen out of the broken room into the floor below. She was crying and standing before the broken windows.”
A massive boom rocked the building, and windows shattered at street level.
The stairwell burst open, and Specialist Green stopped in the doorway, taking in everyoneying on the floor.
“What the fuck was that?” Roy barked as he pushed himself back to his feet. “Is the castle copsing?”
“The rockdy jumped!” Green called out. “I tried getting downstairs in time to warn everyone, but…” He gave an embarrassed shrug.
Those closest to the door rushed outside. The sidewalk was even more littered with debris, thrown there from the impact crater a few yards east of the building’s front door. Roy and Sigrid rushed to the edge while Nate and Siobhan stopped further back as others joined them.
A figure stirred and began to climb from the pit. It was shaped like a woman, but that was their only clue.
“Are ya all right?” Roy asked cautiously.
The stone woman nced up at him, and they could see tears in her eyes. She watched them timidly.
“You didn’t expect to survive,” Sigrid guessed, and the woman looked to her, then shook her head sadly. Sigrid held out her hand. “You’re amongst friends. This is Roy, and I’m Sigrid. What’s your name?”
“Ver-Veronica.”
Her voice was rough and quiet, but Nate froze as he recognized it immediately. “Ronnie?” he gasped almost silently through a tight throat. His feet began to move him backward through the gathered people. Siobhan watched him leave with a puzzled expression.
He knew the woman getting to her feet before Sigrid, but back then, they’d both just been human, or at least she’d been, and he thought he was.
Veronica Henderson. Nate grew up across the street from the cute brte. They were friends from a young age and sought each other out when hormones were busy turning them into adults. His parents had ensured he kept things innocent as her parents were religious fundamentalists, and things would get very bad for the girl if they weren’t careful. Then came the day when Ronnie was fed up with her parents’ restrictions and no longer wanted to y it safe. She’d tugged down his zipper and got more than a little yful. He’d never experienced anything so wonderful and wasn’t prepared for his orgasm.
The Wild Magic she’d ingested had an immediate and frightening effect on her physiology. He’d thought it was an allergy at the time, but he never got to ask as her parents took her and moved away.
Nate dropped his mor and leapt into the sky, beating his ck wings to gain elevation, to get distance between himself and his sin. The woman whose life he’d fucked up so badly she’d just tried to kill herself.
Sigrid watched Nate flying up and spotted a shadow circling the rooftop. “Shit! Demons.” She looked to Roy. “I have to go after Nate.” Roy nodded, so Sigrid stepped back then leapt upwards, her wings and armor shing into view, lighting up the street like daylight, as she chased Nate’s inky ckness into the dark sky.
The stone woman was watching the flying people with undisguised shock and awe. Then she realized she was the focus of a lot of attention.
Cam moved up beside Roy and read the stone woman’s bodynguage. She was shrinking from all the eyes aimed her way. This gave her an idea. “I’m Cam. We need to rescue our friend at the top of this building, but we can take you to a ce the locals call Eden once that’s done. It’s a world without Humans. It’s very peaceful, I understand.”
Veronica’s eyes looked into Cam’s. “Who-who lives there?”
Cam smiled. “Currently, only some ss People and some Silver People,” she gestured back towards the soldiers behind her. “But civilian Silver People,” she corrected with a gentle smile.N?velDrama.Org content.
The stone woman nodded. “That would be good.”
“Good. You can get into any of our trucks and make yourselffortable. We’ll be back,” the CEO suggested as she pointed a short distance up the street where their rides waited. She got a nod from the woman, so she turned to touch Roy’s arm. They faced the others to gesture for everyone to go back into the building.
They had rescuing to do.
-=-
Sigrid was cursing under her breath as she raced closer to Nate, who was tiring in his efforts to reach the roof. She’d definitely caught sight of at least two demons flying around the castle. Nate didn’t seem to be aware of them.
“Wait!” she finally called out, and he lurched to the side as he turned his head to look back at her.
The demon diving at him missed and shot by, mming into Sigrid’s shield with a sickening crack. It continued on its way to the ground, broken and spiraling to its doom.