《The Uncanny Mage》


 Chapter 1 In Which We Meet The Protagonist

    You know I woke up amid a pile of leaves, crackly twigs, and embraced by the sound of the rustling trees and was spitting out golden foliage that happened to get inside my mouth as I breathed. I tried to spit leaves out from my mouth and tried to find my way out. I groped blindly as I tried to find a way out. And then more leaves fell on me. I tried standing up. More leaves fell.


    "WHAT THE FUCK!" I shouted as stood up and frantically scrambled out. I didn''t know why I was so unnerved and I don''t know if was worried of getting suffocated by all the leaves but by God, did I get out of there fast. I realized that I was in the middle of a forest. A fucking forest. Not so strange in of itself but considering I was in New York the last time remembered, this was some weird crap.


    A bird (I don''t know what kind) started chirping at me in a way I swore was insulting and saying obscenities about my mother. "Oh, shut up," I growled as I stared maliciously at this stupid fucking bird. "Everybody''s a fucking critic, aren''t they," I muttered darkly as tried to stand up. Tried, in that I tripped over a root and face planted. The bird started chirping again, but louder.


    Grabbing a stick I chucked it at the stupid thing. Not even deigning to dodge it proceeded to chirp at me more. I glared at it. He chirped back. I stood there tall and angry in my leather duster, over a Struts t-shirt, wearing a pair of dark blue jeans, and simple, militant, iron-tipped boots.


    I guess it wasn''t very impressed by my dark, messy hair, long face with with tired, slitted eyes , scraggly beard and twirled mustachios, and looking like I was a burned-out corporate slave.


    Shaking my head and trying to take stock of myself I patted myself down for injuries and found none but did find my key-which was nice I guess, my wallet with my combined life savings of 250 measly dollars, my gun-which was passed down from generation-to-generation for gods know for how long, a myriad of herbal concoctions-which could do anything from forcing a werewolf to change back into human form to giving a man a deadly fit of coughing, which didn''t sound so bad until you realized that he would continue to cough until his lungs came out, a bunch of things ranging from a silver-capped wand given freely to me from a treant that lived near a fairy ring for services rendered, blessed by Titania the Summer Queen Of The Fae, and which I carved runes that made it fairly more dangerous than it already was, and a series of protective runes which the most important one was the tattoo on my back that looked like a untidy mix of Pagan Symbols, New Age protection, and Meso-American hexes, and finally a of course my trusty sacrificial knife.


    I tried to remember what I did that could''ve landed me into this situation (the last time I was drunk was weeks ago, I dont remember upsetting any Old Powers recently, and the majority of the warlocks and Paladins I pissed off knew not to mess with me after I beat the crap out of them).


    "Well Jack, you''ve landed yourself into a fine clusterfuck haven''t you now" I said as I shook my head. "Surrounded by trees, not knowing where I am, and a bird THAT WON''T FUCKING STOP CHIRPING!" I shouted loudly towards the end. He chirped louder.


    Shaking my head and surrounded by tall oak trees that could''ve been here since before I was born crowned with gilded leaves of gold and yellow, silent except for the noise of the forest, and having nothing but what I had on I walked around fallen logs and twigs and left behind the bird that stared at me as I left and strolled for a while and thought to myself "Wow, I really need to get out more," never realizing how relaxing it is not fighting Old Gods, wrestling trolls, or losing all my money after a rough night at the bar.


    Also the scenery was nice I guess. Surrounded by Autumn trees and babbling brooks and what not. The more I walked, the more confident I got.


    After I walked for some time I got thirsty, and while I am what some would call a wizard I couldn''t throw fireballs, conjure lightning, or even fly, but I did have some fun tricks and used that to bring the water from a nearby bubbling creek near my face, excite the molecules to kill any pesky bacteria, and drank it there.


    With a laugh and a leap I ran through the forest thinking "A man could grow to like this," as I grinned wildly. With a hoot and a laugh fraught with wild abandon I jumped up to grab a nearby branch and threw myself into the air. Normally, this would''ve launched me a few feet at the most -but as I said I may not be your conventional wizard I did have some tricks-I convinced the Laws of Physics that I really should''ve been launched, Oh say, a few hundred feet instead.


    Soaring through the forest I forgot that I was in a fucking forest and smacked my head into river. Soaking wet, I trudged out with a sigh I collected the water from my clothes into a orb of water in front of me and launched it out in front of me lackadaisically.


    After leaping around at a more sedate pace with nothing but my thoughts, I thought to myself "At least I still have the same clothes I had on as the last day I remember," I stumbled. Tumbled out of control. Hit my head on a tree. But my pale face and body-that didn''t look incongruous to a corpse, shaking hands that made me look like a Parkinson''s victim, and dilated pupils couldn''t simply be attributed to shock or pain.


    I shakily tried to stand up. I fell. I tried to stand up again. I fell again. Trying to stand up more slowly and succeeded but was wracked by a series of vomiting that force me back onto the ground and spewing partially-digested food onto my jeans. My mind was a jumble. I limped out of there and near a tree. I sat against it. Trying to calm myself and collect my thoughts, I looked at the tree so I could have something normal and tangible and utterly mundane to look at.


    I saw a giant verdant tree with a hollow in it that looked incredibly attractive right now that had low-hanging fruit that looked soft and red and absolutely delicious( which also had a raccoon squirming its way up to steal a piece of fruit).


    I sat there trying to calm my racing heart but as the raccoon skirted behind me with a piece of the same-said fruit, I stopped myself as I heard a loud shriek from behind and I turned around to find it dead with a chunk of the fruit still in its mouth. After pondering what could''ve killed it, (I mean we were completely alone and there were no obvious arrow or wound that signaled to me what killed it), I saw roots burst out of its stomach and promptly proceeded to wrap itself around the raccoon, quickly covering its whole body.


    I admit, I shrieked like a little girl after I saw it pick itself up, rush back to the tree, and jump into the hollow which closed itself up and made a rather disturbing crunching sound. "Damn", I said to myself as I leapt to my feet with a shaky voice and wide eyes. "Damn. Damn. Damn. Fuck. Shit" I muttered to myself like an addict with withdrawal. "What the fucking fuck is going on here," I said as I scrabbled away from the awfully normal looking tree. "shitshitshitshitshit. fuckfuckfuckfuck," raced through my mind as I realized a tree fucking killed a raccoon and took over its body and jumped into the tree and got eaten. I vomited again.


    At least I tried to, but I was all out after the little fit I had last time. I tried to check my shuddering breathes but all that did was make me all the more aware of the weird shit around me; the fact that there was always the sound of a woman singing in the background that I ever quite noticed,  a disturbing lack of large animals in a such prime real estate, and holy shit was that the same bird!


    "No, Jack. Stop. You''re going crazy," I thought to myself, as I tried again to calm myself. You might wonder why I was so scared. I mean, hitting my head couldn''t have knocked a screw loose, now could it? And a parasitic tree is scary, but don''t we already know about parasitic mushrooms right?But remember when I said that I had the same clothes on as the last day I remembered? Well, I was wearing the same clothes I wore on the day I killed myself.


    I sat in a clearing that had no trees around for 15 meters and after gazing at it with my True Sight, detected no demons, hidden monsters, or traps nearby (in which I also cast a myriad of charms-a compulsion on any sentient organic beings to not pay to much attention to me among others, a hex to send a kinetic explosion towards their way, and a series of protective glyphs that squirmed on an invisible globe about 3 meters above me) and sat down to mediate for a period of time.


    After a period of time I felt more confident after parsing through the relevant data and figuring out just what happened.


    During the last day I remembered it was more or less average, I had been commissioned to find a relic for a relatively famous individual, The Historian.


    Having been alive longer than any mortal had been and after meticulously making certain all references to his past had been purged, not much is known about him except he obsesses over anything obscure or weird. He hates outside contact for fear of someone stealing his precious artifacts and hates anyone knowing anything about him, in fact legend has it that he burned down the Library Of Alexandria after someone had found out his true name.


    And in a time where names aren''t names but rather Names, it seemed rather sedate for a man as paranoid as him.


    I was sleeping in my apartment when one of his Agents, the Scribes burst in with scrolls out, ready to unleash upon me anything from a storm of locust left over from the Old Testament to a flurry of mini-dragons made out of lightning.


    Thankfully, I''m not a complete fool and installed a series of defenses from floating land mines that exist only in the umpteenth dimension to anti-matter shaped charges to dark energy fueled lasers that could cut through concrete like a surgical knife through rotted flesh.


    And the Scribes'' weren''t very sturdy beings to begin with with them being made out of tanned human skin and whatever weird stuff The Historian decided to cram into them.


    Still, not willing to die to my arrogance I put on my leather duster and put a talisman in my left hand and my silver sacrificial knife-an athame into my other and stood there like I saw this kind of thing everyday (which I did) and acted like I was bored more than anything else.


    "Done getting your ass handed to you yet, Historian," I said lazily to the remaining Scribe that managed to survive the maelstrom of destruction I had unleashed, knowing The Historian was watching from behind their beady eyes.


    The relatively uninjured Scribe walk towards me as if  it hadn''t just seen its brethren destroyed in an instant before him. It ignored the chaos around him-the papers strewn everywhere, the char marks on the ceiling, and the holes in the neighboring apartment.


    You know you would look most splendid preserved and in a jar. And having you in multiple tiny little pieces. Floating. Around. In. A. Dozen. Different. Jars," he casually spoke in an all-too-serious tone which told all that he didn''t even think of anyone as a person, just an interesting little trinket yet to be collected.


    "Anything else you care to monologue about? Or is this the day I find you and kill you?," I said in a cheery voice that sounded all too happy to commit wonton violence. A smirk is all I received in return from The Historian, at least what seemed like a smirk because all the Scribes had for mouths were a black blot of ink. "Jack, you sound so much like your father," causally remarked The Historian.


    I struggle my urge to ask him about my father, a figure which rumors abounded about but which little actual knowledge existed. "And?", I said as nonchalantly as I could not giving a single sign that I cared in the slightest. "Really Jack, I expected at least a little interest. No sense of wonder? No awe of the unknown? Or maybe you already know everything there is to know about that elusive figure," He said mockingly to me.


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    I didn''t say anything, refusing to talk to him any longer than I had to.


    "Anyways Jack, He said sensing my disinterest "I found an interesting little thing recently, an Artifact Of Power, said to be able disrupt the power balance of the world, shatter the world, and make a vagrant into a god. It is currently in the vault of the Smithsonian Museum about to be a part of a showcase on ancient cults," The Historian said in a bored little voice which seemed inconsistent with what he had said.


    "Let me guess, if I don''t get this for you then you''ll bend your considerable might into screwing me over and killing me?", I asked ever so nonchalantly.


    "No, Jack. I''ll send demons to haunt your dreams, beings born from your forgotten childhood fears to plague you, and you''ll see them every time as you so much as blink," He hissed as the Scribe leaned in and grabbed my face. "You''ll never sleep again, for fear of seeing Hell. So cut your shit out or I''ll show you horrors that would drive even the Gods to madness, and you will have three days to accomplish this," He announced in a tone that brokered no argument. "Well, if you put it like that then I''ll have to do it of course," I said shakily.


    He smiled the widest smile I''ve ever seen, the smile of a man gone mad long ago with nothing but dusty old things to keep him going.


    "But I''ll expect a reward nonetheless and if you try to bully me into doing anything else, I''ll show you why I am a Power and a Domination in my own right," I pronounced with steel in my voice and a not-so-subtle promise of revenge.


    To my disconcertion, all he had in response was a wider smile.


    "Good, Jack. Very good indeed," He said silkily as the Scribe began to crumble into ash before me. "And I''ll of course send someone by to fix up that unfortunate little hole," as He left.


    After a few minutes he left I went to the front of the room and tried to close my ramshackle excuse of a door, only to have it collapse as soon as I touched it. "Maybe I shouldn''t have put so many of them on the door," I thought as I went back to the living room and collapsed onto my lime-green couch that could have been any color before I found it on the street.


    "What have I gotten myself into now?" I thought as I shook my head. "Its too early for this crap. I need a drink,"


    Much has changed since magic and the rest of the world collided. When the existence of magic was shown to be very much real and not just some superstitions of peasants relegated to old stories and fables told to children, nor some form of mass delusion via ergot poisoning, nor even as tricks played by stage magicians that relied on sleight of hand and an ignorant audience the world was shaken.


    If they found in a way that was constructive-like an elementalist holding back a flood by moving rock and earth to form a blockage in the river like they had when the Orion LLC. decided to cut corners and chose to build the dam out of sub-standard materials and if not for the intervention of a nearby magic caster millions of live would''ve been lost.


    Or if they found out magic by seeing it as a peaceful thing-like when clerics risked their lives to heal as many of the sick as they could during the outbreak of the superbugs in Africa that look poised to wipe out the rest of the world because politicians were too busy trying to find out a way they could make a profit from the chaos by selling overpriced and ineffective vaccines to the people too ignorant and desperate to know any better, but they found out in the worst way possible.


    They found out in the form of a mad conjurer that set upon the normal populace which nothing to do with the magical world  a plague of terrors which caused many men, women, and children to be slain at the hand of monsters they couldn''t even kill and which wiped out militaries around the world.


    What use is a tank against a being that had no physical form? A gun against a being that existed solely within your mind and drove your heart to explode from the inconceivable terror you experience? What use was even a nuke when you didn''t know where the attack came from and when you can''t trust the very judgement of your commanders?


    The world leaders convened in Switzerland and nothing was accomplished. All that was done was an increase of ill will between them as the Western Powers blamed China, Russia, and the Middle East and claiming that this was some kind of biological weapon they had been cooking up. They fired back with accusation of that this was surely the work of nanobots they had planted into their water to break their nations.


    As the world balanced on a knife''s edge and as the Mad Conjurer continue to evade the combined military forces of the Elementalists'' Guild, the War Mages, the Dark Cabal, the Conjurers'' Union, even the infamous Third Eye Corporation had no luck in divining his location, and as even the Independents joined in to end this madness, nothing seemed to work.


    When his location was finally realized to be in Shadows'' Reach-a place where spectres whose bodies were never found lurked, where the zombie corpses of Behemoths walked, and where the gestalt of the Gods that were forgotten by their followers laid-no one wanted to be the first one in, even knowing the consequences of dallying could result in a nuclear winter.


    They finally decided to not send in an army, which would''ve alerted the Mad Conjurer, instead they elected to send in a small group of powerful, infamous, and expendable people, of which I was one.


    There was The Eclipse-the oldest undead known to us and said to be powerful enough to make the Black Plague look like a preschooler''s wet nose,  Evan the Indomitable-strong enough to hold back an army, Timothy Dodger-a time-lost street gang boss that somehow entered our time a few years ago and somehow managed to gain absolute control over the magical underworld in under the space of a month, Sister Josephine-a former cut-purse and now a rabid Crusader against all things Dark, Arcane, and Sin in general which caused no small trouble to the rich men and women around the world (magical or not), and then there''s me.


    A man armed with a Living Coat and a blade that seemed to cut through all, morally ambiguous but not quite Light or Dark, winning battles without throwing a single blow, and said to be able to know the Flow of Time.


    It''s astonishing to find out that all of it was nothing but a good con game. I''m not a brawler, I don''t have much else than a set of tricks, and the majority of my reputation was built up by nothing but a series of rumors spread by none else but Yours Truly.


    It''s not to say I can''t be incredibly frightening or dangerous (I can quite handily slaughter a roomful of people but if people know that I kill everyone I fight then the day I get bested I would have no chance of getting spared as opposed to a slim one) but it''s amazing what a dangerous story can do for a man, much more than I would''ve ever thought possible. I can silence a roaring mob with nothing but a disapproving glare, people crosse the street as soon as they see me, and let me tell you, you wouldn''t believe the free stuff I get.


    But by now you must be wondering how did the world not find out about magic sooner? Knowing that the march of time would eventually lead to conflict between technology and wizardry, Merlin summoned up the Father Of Lies himself, Lucifer and made a pact with him give me power beyond imagine for but a hour and I will be yours forever Merlin was able to fashion what was thought to be impossible before; a pocket dimension big enough for millions of inhabitants and gave us a last safe haven against the spread of craft.


    But his wisdom and cunning was not at an end; for not willing to be dragged to Hell, he imprisoned himself inside of a crystal so that he shall never die and The Devil will never have him.


    But as you see, all it takes is one bad apple to have our Eden be taken from us.


    Shaking myself out of reminisces of the past I stood up, splashed some water onto my face, and walked out to my favorite bar The Red Cap.


    Stepping out into the bustling streets of Avalon I was assaulted by a barrage of the senses, from the way power thrummed in the air from the auras of the combat mages patrolling the streets to the heady perfume of incense being hawked by the Serpent traders with scaly skin, forked tongues, and hissing voices saying how they were having a sale on protective charms against demons (and reminded myself to buy some on the way back) to the smell of the fried gremlins-on-a-stick to the sight of Headless Horsemen on the same road as a Bicorn on the same road as a car from 250 years in the future.


    As people caught sight of me, they quickly decided they had to be somewhere that was decidedly not here. Walking down the dimly lit streets where the only source of light was the blue lights powered by the souls of those unfortunate enough to owe a large enough debt to Wyndharl Energies, and would continue to power them until they paid of their debt.


    If you were stupid enough to be in Avalon, then you better be able to dance on the head of a pin


    Smiling to myself and enjoying the suddenly empty sidewalk, I strolled down quickly the block since no matter how big you are there is always someone bigger than you. After walking for sometime, my sight was caught by a giant mantis getting thrown out of a window and I stopped to see the ensuring fight.


    A monk clad in white stepped out over the broken glass and glared at the mantis. Already back on its feet, the mantis let out a chilling battle scream and launched itself with its powerful hind legs towards the monk.


    Quickly dodging the flurry of blows which left an unsettling whooshing sound in their wake, the monk closed in and unleashed a storm of blows onto the mantis which sent it somersaulting through the air and slammed into a light post.


    With nothing worse than a cracked carapace, he quickly threw himself back in and his moves which were already quite fast became too fast for normal eyes to catch and forced the monk back further and further until they were back at the window.


    By now a crowd had formed and a series of bets were being placed, instead of enforcing the peace the Patrol Mages chose to place some bets themselves. Cutting through brick and mortar like paper, the mantis''s arms which were more like blades scored a long cut across the monks torso spraying blood everywhere.


    After pressing his advantage, the fight rapidly shifted to the mantis''s as he amputated his arms and leaving his body without a head.


    Shrieking his victory in an alien dialect, he wasted no time in eating his prey which was when the Mages promptly shot it in the back with fireballs, lightning, and bursts of gravity which left him as a compact piece of charred insect because while we turn a blind eye to death, we always clean up afterwards.


    Noticing that The Red Cap was close, I turned back around and sauntered towards it.


    It was located between an extra-dimensional call center and a wannabe demon king''s lair, which led to all sorts of interesting times in the bar. Like that time when a fifth-dimensional being popped in for a drink and left the furniture morphing into all kinds of interesting shapes for weeks after or when a group of would-be adventurers got the wrong address and interrupted a poker tournament that was going on, we didn''t take too kindly to that and cast on them a cyber-curse which caused them to speak in binary and grow an unhealthy fetish for computers.


    I opened the door with a light heart because nothing makes up for an Immortal blowing up your apartment and threatening you with horrors beyond imagination better than senseless death and a nice, cold pint.

 Chapter 2 The Red Cap

    You The Red Cap is an interesting place; where the rich and powerful can discuss the latest Arena fight with drug addicts , where Satanists can enjoy a drink with the White Apostle, and where Martians could play cards with Yetis.


    By unspoken law, no Great Feud can be pursued here, where nothing is too horrible and anything can be bought-souls, Angel feathers, tattoos in dragon blood, and things to maddening to speak in mixed company, and where everyone is equal and no one is great because nothing lasts forever (because nothing lasts forever, much less power or wealth), a place where the beggar in ragged clothing muttering unintelligible things over a cup of rat-meat soup could be an agent  for the Powers-That-Be or the bookish, bespectacled scholar that was actually a neuromancer getting some liquid courage before his shift starts and who is strong enough to do anything from giving you a case of psychosis to melting your gray matter.


    Strange, isn''t it, that this was where I felt most at home?


    Receiving nothing but a quick once-over and a few protection against evil amulets being grasped as I entered the bar, I sat at my usual spot; the corner booth since I always believed in having my back to a wall.


    It also gave me a good view of the rest of the people here; a gaggle of witches talking about their newest familiar-a crystal spirit strong enough to withstand a direct blast of Hellfire for an astonishingly long period of time (I suspect that the spirit had its own agenda since creatures that powerful rarely stayed bound for long), a Swamp Man with dreadlocks of Spanish moss wearing a cloak and eating algae and minnows, two finance mages discussing how much of a profit the shipment of Hands'' o'' Glory would make, a fire giant and dryad couple getting back together for the fifth time, professing their love to each other again how it was obviously their fault that she caught on fire.


    I smiled internally as I saw what was only possible here, in a place where the worst and best in the world gathered, and was utterly inconceivable elsewhere.


    As I ordered my usual of the Black Pandemonium, I noted once again of how The Red Cap managed to solve the common issue of the servants'' having loose tongues-and in a place where Issues Of Great Importance were discussed everyday, this was particularly not favorable-by simply cutting their tongues and sewing their lips.


    I thought about how different Avalon was from the rest of the world; instead of having a sun or a night sky dotted with stars, what we have is sky turned red by the multitude of demons flying above for while Merlin gave us a last respite since it was made with the Devil''s power it was made as a pocket dimension precariously close to the Gates of Hell.


    And so, for those mad enough to turn their gaze upward all they will find are blood-red demons flitting around above, horrors peering down at the ant farm below, and the spirits of the Damned trying to claw their way in and cursing us for salvation being so close and yet so far.


    While Merlin''s defenses stand strong for they were made with the combined might of Man and Devil, we still fear the day they fall for we know we would fall like wheat beneath a sickle and so we choose to ignore what''s so obviously above us and because of that we never built skyscrapers.


    A common question tourists have is "How are you able to keep expanding and growing despite living in a seemingly small place?" What they don''t know is that in Avalon space will always be available since Avalon is a fluid place; still expanding and increasing its borders everyday with keen-eyed wizards standing at its borders waiting to lay waste to any incursion by the demons.


    They ask us "Why do you stay here if you have such power in the form of magic, such knowledge in out museums in the form of the Ambrosius Institute Of The Eldritch, and such high technology from the future in the form of the Fort Of Time?" And we reply calmly "When Merlin made this place we didn''t know how long we would last in the Old World and we didn''t have the knowledge, the power, and the tech we now do. We didn''t know if death was still lurking on the other side and so we sealed ourselves in and started a new life, started up new farms, and built new lives. Memories and tradition and emotions soak the very foundation of this place, marking it as our home and hearth. And even if we all decided to desert out homes, our businesses, our memories then what would stop Hell from claiming this as their own and giving them a gateway to Earth?"


    Avalon is not a place for those without a steady heart, it is a place where the roads are paved with bricks made with the blood of Demons, a place where people and things from different worlds, different dimensions, and different times intermix, it is place where the taxis run on the distilled souls and what seems like a carriage could be a thing masquerading as one waiting for an unwary driver to swallow up, and it is a place where miracles abound and long shots aren''t so long.


    There are a multitude of ways to enter Avalon-from the way Merlin did with Stonehenge to contracting a cyber demon to pull you into a computer screen and out into a cyber cafe in Avalon to driving on the Lonesome Road for an indefinite period of time and when you decide that surely you are lost and decide to turn back around will you begin to enter the streets of Avalon to going on one of the subway stops scattered around Creation that lead anywhere from Avalon to Kbxabax! Prime.


    What few realize is that Avalon isn''t Camelot, King Arthur is long gone, and that this a horrible place for a horrible group of people willing to do anything to live another day. To live another hour. To live another minute.


    Rising out of my reverie and absorbed in the ambience as I waited for my drink to arrive; I observed a group of combat mages taking a break from their patrols and complaining about how demons that controlled the traffic lights were on strike again and were causing havoc with traffic, a flock of skeletal crows made a nest in one of the corners again, and the band was as bad as ever as in the back they played a horrid portmanteau of death metal and polka. I thought about using my Gift to knock them out and end the truly awful noise (nothing permanent, it was just a simple act of jostling their heads hard against the skull until they pass out; quite easy when your forte is kinetics).


    Coming back with my drink and ending my thoughts of casual bullying, the servant put down a glass along with my bottle "I won''t need the glass," I said bluntly as I stated at it.


    Radiating an ice-cold aura which silently said "Drink me, drink me and feel the touch of Death,"  The liquid inside of it was viscous and as smooth as quicksilver at the same time, swirling within it were figures of the bits of damned souls used to give it its oily taste of disgusting sin that left wanting to come back for more and was said to make you closer to the demons than man, and the text announced to all and sundry "Bottled in the Depths of Hell, This Elixir is sure to Excite and Entice all to Walk a step further from Salvation,"


    Summoning up my courage to drink the disgusting beverage I ordered every time for some reason, Austin Barrel, the barkeep of this wonderful piece of Purgatory, remarked to me "You know, Jack, that you''re the only bugger stupid enough to drink that swill?"


    "I already know that Saint Peter won''t be greeting me with open arms even if I somehow managed to weasel my way in, so I decided to save him some grief and make certain to all just where I''m going when I die horribly at the hands of some impossible creature," I snapped back sharply.


    The customers all leaned back and there was a sharp intake of breath through whatever orifice passed for a mouth all around me because all were certain that things were going to get very messy, very violently, and very suddenly.


    Personally speaking, I wasn''t mad but I had a reputation to protect and upkeep but Austin was one of the few that I could call a friend and I didn''t want to hurt him.


    Knowing this and defusing the situation with a laugh and a wave of the hand, Austin said "Well, if you like it so much then you will probably enjoy this as well," Reaching behind the counter and grabbing a bottle from the cabinet where kept his most scary and most obscure brews He said to me cheerfully "You know, me and the rest of the patrons have a bet going on that you won''t be able to keep this down,"


    My interest now caught I said inquiringly "Oh, is that so?" With nothing but a chuckle in response, Austin pulled out a bottle of something that I have never seen before, an impressive feat already, and set it on the bar.


    Sitting on the bar was a bottle of something far too bright but yet not blinding and the light it put out left no shadows in the dimly lit bar. Hissing and quickly trying to find any cover from the all-piercing light which could shine so bright that it could bring light to even the deepest abyss.


    And in case you thought that I was merely bright, let me tell you it was brighter than a nuclear blast, brighter than anything I''ve ever seen or even heard of.


    It seemed all too real, all too powerful to be contained in a bottle and seemed to pierce out hearts and expose every flaw, every crack, and every sin we carried. It was the personification of goodness, love, and loyalty, purity incarnate. We were frightened by it. Shocked. Cowed. Awed.


    And than it started singing. In an ephemeral voice, both beautifully young and infinitely old, that seemed to be a blend of a choir of angels, it sang to us our failures, how unworthy we were, and how fallible we all are; the liquid was promising to drive back the darkness and to usher in a Golden Age. And in a roomful of monsters, that was the worst thing imaginable.


    With a high-pitched wail we threw up our protections to shield us, from mana shields to artists drawing up portraits of a griffin and throwing it in the air to have the drawing come to life to shield them to people from the future putting down forcefields operating on principles yet to be discovered to the band jamming out a beat that coalesced into a wall of sound to me rapidly vibrating the air in front of me.


    Gritting our teeth, we walked slowly but inexorably forward to put a stop to the damned singing. I felt myself feeling faint-headed as the voice reverberated against my evils and that stressed the very fibers of my soul; I saw those with too much darkness in their heart collapsing despite their best efforts to protect themselves and as we saw them get right back up with a bright burning silver light behind their eyes and as we saw them ready their spells, pull out their guns, and chanting Gregorian hymns our already wide eyes grew ever wider and we pushed forward more desperately than ever before.


    Those that were enemies for decades put aside their feuds, for none wanted to become one of them, and joined forces to protect each other.


    With a raging shout that resonated from depths which even I didn''t know that I possessed, I put one leg in front of another and thought "Faster. Faster. God damn Jack, you need to be faster," My limping got faster until it was a walk  and then a jog and then a full-fledged sprint.


    I spared a glance behind me and immediately regretted it; I saw those that were struck down by the voice manifest white, fiery swords in the shape of a cross and promptly began cutting down those that were friends only moments before, all without a single sign of pity or remorse.


    I saw proud men and women that had slain a thousand monsters-from demons to vampires to Goliaths, they were people that had never bowed to anyone ever before in their life, but as they saw what was before them they kneeled meekly before them waiting for Judgement to pass upon them, for they had dead eyes as they knew there was nothing they could do against the unyielding tsunami of Power that was in front of them.


    I saw masters of arcane lore who had been alive since the Golden Age of Greece and creatures of night, predators who hunted the streets and stoked fear in the hearts of people, cry out for the first time as they saw the Holy Light of Death descending on them, and they sobbed like children as they laid before them stripped of pride and bereft of anything they could do to stem the flood of soul-shattering fear they experienced.


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    I saw warriors of legend and myth breaking their vorpal blades against the unnaturally hard bodies of the Angelkin and esteemed scholars who had gazed on horrors from the Outside and didn''t so much as blink become gibbering husks of the great people they once were, spouting nonsense as their minds fractured as they saw how useless their life''s experiences were against a Force that gave birth to the universe and gave form to Earth from the primordial soup it was.


    Shivering, I turned my eyes forward and raced to the bottle in a rush fueled by close by Death; "Please let me get there in time. Please. Please. pleasepleasepleaseplease,"  I feverishly thought as an angelic blade lashed against my back.


    Letting out a cry of anguish, I fell towards the floor as the blade forged by the will of God ignited my blood that coursed with Damnation and sent my body ablaze.


    It burned like an inferno, an inferno that would never go out for it was the Fire of God, it set my skin on fire and charred me black. I was a wreck.


    As I laid there, I heard the symphony of tears, pain, and death behind me reaching a roaring crescendo "Why should I fight any more? It''s not like it''s going to mean anything in the end will it? Maybe I should just accept it," I thought to myself, knowing it was just the work of the Angelkin (because they had to be didn''t they? These can''t be my own thoughts could they?).


    With a scream that was as much for myself as for the Angelkin I shouted "I WILL NOT BE DOMINATED! I. AM. JACK. MILLORY! I HAVE BATTLED THE ANCIENTS AND LIVED! I HAVE DONE MONSTROUS THINGS IN THE NAME OF MY FRIENDS! I CAN SHATTER THE WORLD! I HAVE OUTWITTED FATHER TIME!"


    I picked myself up from the floor even though my body felt like molten lead, even though my organs had begun to melt, even though every fiber of my soul shouted at me "Just lay down and die, just accept your fate you horrible, horrible man".


    I picked myself up despite all of this and dodged the Angelkin and fought back against them for the first time by launching a burst of gravity fueled by my crippling fear, my blazing anger, my dizzying confusion that sent it flying back in a whirlwind of sound from the rapidly compressed air , frustration in the form of an Angelic growl, and flesh sprayed everywhere as it was crushed.


    All of that meant nothing to it for all I had done was remove the meat holding in the Heavenly Grace; free of any restraints it grew bigger than ever before and blinded us all as it revealed to us it''s true form: a vaguely man-shaped cloud of cosmic-blue energy too great for us to gaze upon wearing a crown of silver crosses and wielding a greataxe made of the same stuff that fueled our very souls but far more concentrated and far more more.


    I charged towards it knowing full well that I could die in an instant at the hands of something so fast I couldn''t ever keep up with; I pulled my athame, imbued with kinetic force, and stabbed at a space somewhere vaguely in front of me.


    Hitting nothing but air the Angelkin swiped at me with the axe that I tried to dodge but instead scored a great cur across my side, it was a edge so sharp that managed to split the very oxygen molecules and let out an explosion of energy and sent me hurling.


    By the time I regained my bearings, it was already front of me; time seemed to slow as the greataxe loomed above me and began to move downwards towards my neck.


    Grimacing I activated the rest of my Gift, the ability to slow Time for everyone else except for me, and time really did slow (The reason why I hated to do this is that it left me a random effect on me as soon as the effect was over-from giving me nightmares of random people from around the world and around time to making me vomiting everything I tried to eat for a week to possibly killing me entirely).


    My Gift did nothing to slake the Holy Fire within me and instead of collapsing to my knees like I so fervently wanted, I stood up and imbued my athame instead of a kinetic force of explosion but rather giving it a sharper edge than anyone would''ve thought possible and stepped forward and slashed at the Angelkin.


    Unexpectedly, it''s body was far thought than I had thought and instead of the proverbial hot knife through butter, it was more like a hotknife through steel and from the small cut I managed to inflict on him leapt out even more fire.


    "Well, I''m already as fucked as fucked can be so it isn''t as bad as it could''ve been," Surprising myself with my drollery, I smiled the smile of a man with nothing to lose.


    Pushing past the pain and instead focusing on at least killing one of the bastards I pushed on the blade with the weight of my lead body and as the Angelkin realized that somehow the mortal monkey managed to hurt him it slashed towards itself to stop me from doing any more damage.


    Honestly, I couldn''t have possibly managed to kill him before it killed me (I mean, my athame is a nice piece of metal if I may say so myself but it''s nothing against a being that existed for millennia) and any wound I inflicted would be temporary and my blade wasn''t sharp enough to kill it but it''s axe was sharp enough.


    Releasing Time I quickly dive to the floor as the axe whistled millimeters above my head and as it passed the wind pressure pulled a few strands of hair from my scalp but not being able to stop its perilous descent after I manipulated the energy behind to be magnified ten-fold, it cut itself neatly into two and the being dissipated surprisingly calmly by simply floating upwards to wherever it came from.


    For the first time in there existence had one of them been defeated, and it showed in the way they all lowered their blades in shock at the impunity I had to dare to not meekly lay my head before them.


    For a second that seemed like a century, the bar was quiet and then someone said "By God, Jack actually managed to kill one of them," in a voice filled with awe and almost religious respect and when I turned to see who said this I saw that it was the last remaining combat mage that was drinking with his now dead pals, he was an arithmagician; a Mage that channeled imaginary numbers, the infinite digits of Pi, and mind-bogglingly complex equations into a blade with a blade sharper than my athame ever could be.


    And with this all turned to look at me with eyes filled with awe, respect, and fear for I had done what they thought was impossible: actually killing of the Angelkin.


    When  the last of its Divine aura disappeared, the rest of them let out an otherworldly wail as they felt lost and pain and defeat for the first time ever, and having never tasted it before it felt so much incredibly more galling.


    With their sorrow invigorating  the rest of us, we fought harder with an energy we didn''t know we possessed but at the end of the day we were just humans and bugs and mythical creatures with no chance of winning.


    And that was when Austin popped back up from behind the counter with a double-barreled shotgun loaded with bullets dipped in the blood of slaughtered innocents, forged in the fires of Hell, and made with Hellion steel and shot at the bottle that still sat on the counter, shattering the bottle and with it the vessel that bound the Angelkin to Avalon.


    With twisted, ugly voices that came from having their aims being thwarted, they all disappeared as one returning for the first time not as victors but as failures; we watched them carefully until we were sure they were gone for good.


    With a grateful look, I nodded to Austin for pulling my ass out of the furnace and saving us all; completely ignoring the fact he was the one that brought the bottle out in the first place.


    "Where in the name of all of the fucking gods did he find such a dangerous thing?" I dazedly thought as it slowly dawned on all of us that we weren''t going to die we all let out a huge sigh of relief.


    And when the source of my adrenaline was gone, I collapsed to my knees because I had a huge cut across my back that didn''t stop bleeding the entire time and is hurting like a bitch, my guts were spilling out from me from the other cut that left my wound smelling like bacon- "URGH!" I threw up as soon as I thought that and when I saw my intestines quiver, I fought my urge to vomit again.


    Also, my skin looked like a hotdog someone had put on the barbecue and forgot to take out until it was all shriveled up and smoking. Frankly, it''s a miracle that I haven''t passed out from the pain yet, but one thing all long-term residents of Avalon get quickly enough is a high pain-tolerance.


    My mind was ajar with the pain thrumming through my body and I could barely recall my own name through the rapid rocketing change from fighting for my life to being relatively safe.


    "You know, not that I''m hurt or anything, but I''m going to take a nice, long nap now," I announced to no one in


    particular and promptly fainted.


    My dreams were never pleasant to begin with but now they were particularly bad, with visions of me being tortured by a Cthulhoid monster; it was like a ball of furry tentacles with no body that was green and oily, as hard as steel but when it grabbed you it felt like a sickly dog. A number of floppy needles, like pieces of broken glass, dangled at the end of its limbs like string, and a single yellow eye with vertical slits peers out at me malevolently from a wide mouth filled with teeth like a shark''s rich with intelligence overflowing with contempt. A proboscis like a fly''s emerges from its abyss-like maw and forces its way into my mouth and lays its spawn inside of me. They quickly hatched and ate their way out of me, and I grew insane with terror as I saw the fuzzy heads pop out of my skin.


    On the brink of madness, I can do nothing but watch as the monster reaches up to my head and sticks its needles into my cranium, sending out shockwaves of bone-shattering pain throughout my body. My pain only excites the maggots inside of me as they crawl even faster.


    Thankfully, the dream ended there and instead switched to an empty white room that seemed to stretch onward forever.


    There, The Historian stood in the form of one of his Scribes calmly sitting in a leather chair, not uncommon to one would find in a manor''s private library and said with the laziness that accompanied the voice of immortals "So Jack, how was that experience for you? I hope that will encourage you to "get a move on" as people say these days,"


    "Fuck you, you old piece of shit," I spat out angrily


    "Resorting to vulgarities already Jack? How crude of you considering that you are no spring chicken yourself" He quipped as the Scribe quirked an eyebrow.


    "You''re right. At 47 years, I''m not a easily impressed fresh-faced green horn that has no idea of how the world works. I am a seasoned wizard that has seen worse things than you and killed more intimidating people in more fucked up situations, so don''t think I won''t kill you," I said icily.


    "Such big words, for an overgrown ape that''s slightly stronger than the rest of the herd" He murmured softly as he looked at his fingernails. "Screw off, Historian and get out of my dreams" "And leave you with the brain-eater?" He replied disdainfully as he watched me struggle to control my fear.


    "I knew we could come to an arrangement, Jack" "Don''t think I won''t get my revenge" I started to say when he interrupted me with "I had many people say that to me over the years and yet here I am, still alive," He said coolly.


    "Now, you''ve spent half of one of your three days unconscious and none the closer to your quarry. It isn''t looking so well for you, Jack," He commented with masterful scorn as he walked out of my dream.


    Thinking furiously of way to not have to work for him, I couldn''t find one and resigned myself to finishing this as fast as I could. Even though I was a private investigator, none of my cases had led me to Earth and I was intrigued as to what I might find.


    Finding no reason not to wake up, I shrugged my shoulders and made a mental effort to wake up-and found myself inside of a giant slime. "Oh great, this day just can''t get better now can it," I thought as I flailed around trying to extract myself out of this thing and getting digested after defeating a seemingly undefeatable divine seemed rather anti-climatic.

 Chapter 3 The Nosferatu Hospital

    I tried to scream but all that achieved was to make tiny little bubbles of air that floated throughout the slime.


    I flailed my arms and tried to wiggle out of it but all that accomplished was to make me squirm in place.  Calming myself down and slowing my movements, I looked around me to find out just where I was and when I saw the clinical white glare of the lights ahead, the ceramic tiles, and when the odor of the bleach they used to clean the room I knew I was in the place I hated most: a hospital.


    Glancing suspiciously around me through the slime, I saw myself in a generic hospital room common everywhere and wondered what the hell I was doing inside of a slime.


    By now, I realized that I was in the Noseferatu Hospital-a hospital that was founded in the 12th century by Count Dracula himself as a front to drink people''s blood by disguising itself as another place where you got treated by letting out excess humors in the form of blood-letting.


    Surprisingly, this went on for quite a while and gathered quite a large clientele list that had names written down in the history books but when the people wished up and realized that the guy was a vampire they got quite miffed and they marched into his office, pitchforks and all, to kill him.


    But by then, Dracula had expanded the place quite well and was larger than any other place at the time so it seemed like a shame to put all of that to waste; which was where someone had the bright idea of using the place as a place of actual medicine.


    So the place got revamped and the doctors there practiced sound medical work instead of the crap the quack doctors did in the rest of Avalon. Not surprisingly, this endeared itself to everybody and Noseferatu Hospital built its reputation back up and started catering not just the rich and powerful, but the poor and downtrodden too. Ever since, the hospital has been on the edge of medical science and was trusted by all in Avalon to be a place where integrity and kindness ruled.


    I heard a muffled feminine voice past the door saying in a concerned voice "It seems like he woke up earlier than expected, Doctor," "As expected of the infamous Jack," An oddly familiar replied wearily in a soft voice that seemed tired beyond belief. "To recover so fast from mortal wounds at a rate that would put to shame even trolls, only to go back into the fray and come back even more scarred until what little I can do will have no effect," I could tell that he shook his head as he said it. I heard a sigh and then he said "Well, let''s not keep him waiting, shall we?"


    Pushing open the door with a motion that he had done a million times before and entering with an atmosphere of warm intellect, his white coat billowed out from behind him as he entered my room in a way that I would''ve thought that was intentional if I didn''t know that he held no stock in affectations.


    "So Jack, how does it feel to survive what should''ve kill you immediately, to live through a experience that put an insane amount of stress that should''ve cause your heart to explode, and to still be whole when so many others aren''t?"


    If it was anybody else I would''ve assumed that it was just a doctor trying to scare his patient to being more careful and spare himself from having to see me again, but this was Jason the Godhand; a man with a sight that could cut across the flesh and see inside of you to see what was ailing without having to do a time-consuming X-Ray that allowed him to save more lives than any other healer, who is able to heal wounds that would have required hours of intensive surgery with a simple touch, and who was said to be able to see down to the very fibers of your soul and I prayed in that moment to gods I didn''t believe in that that wasn''t true because my soul hid a darkness blacker than the pitch-black night of the winter Equinox.


    And so when he said that I should have been dead a hundred times over, I knew just how close to death I was.


    Continuing talking, Jason said with a quirk of his lips "Even I couldn''t have saved you, all I could do was make sure your condition didn''t worsen, and even when we plopped you into Bob here, he''s a medical slime you know, and instead of producing acid he makes a powerful healing tonic, we still weren''t sure if you were even going to last another hour,"


    Blinking my eyes, I said in a raspy voice "Oh. Well. That doesn''t sound too good," Chuckling, he replied with an eyebrow raised "Well, I can definitively say that being burned with Soulfire, having your insides melting to a mix of red ooze, getting multiple arteries cut and bleeding out pints of blood , and fighting an immortal being is definitely not good, in fact, I would even go as far as to say that''s it''s tremendously stupid"


    Smiling in response, I said "Now in hindsight, I can see how that might seem stupid to those unaware of how everything was carefully scripted to every girlish scream but when in fact it was all part of my master plan,"


    With a grin that wouldn''t seem out of place on the face of a father that just heard of how his son pranked his teacher, he checked my vitals with his suddenly green eyes emitting a faint emerald glow and said "Really Jack, I am extremely impressed by your tenacity" "I''m like a cockroach, Sir. Tough and always popping up in the most unexpected places,"


    "Nurse Julia, I think we''ll be fine by ourselves now," He said with a twinkle in his eye.


    "Of course, Doctor" Nurse Julia said as she exited the room with a salacious sway of the hips and a wink at me.


    Waiting until he knew that Julia was out of earshot, Jason said to me roughly "I''ll cut the crap out now if you don''t mind, Jack," Shocked by his sudden change of demeanor I was at a loss of words. Continuing he said "When I said that were close to dying, I wasn''t kidding. Your heart gave out seventeen times before we had you stabilized. Seventeen times, Jack,"


    Jason paused to let that sink in. "You should have been dead on the scene. You should''ve died while in transit here. You should have died while on the operating table, and to be honest putting you into the medical slime here," he said while giving a nod towards Bob "Was just a mere formality and we didn''t expect you to last another minute. But then you lasted another hour, then another, then another, and so on until you survived the afternoon. I can''t fathom what was keeping you alive for so long," he announced with exasperation at the twists of the Fate.


    "Eating my greens and brushing my teeth twice a day?" I offered in response.


    "THIS IS NO LAUGHING MATTER JACK!" He roared like a lion in anger which seemed to defeat the purpose f sending the nurse away if he was going scream like that. He swirled around in smoldering anger as he moved his hands around in a fast but precise set of movements and in front of his hands appeared a projection of my body. Pointing to various spots he told me coldly "This cut artery should''ve bled you out in seconds but somehow you produced enough blood to slow down your blood loss enough so that when I arrived you weren''t an empty blood bag,"


    "And here," he said as he pointed at my back "The axe blow to your spine should''ve left you crippled if not brain dead but you can still walk and jump like a man half your age!"


    "And your skin should''ve peeled like a old scab, but you still look the same as you did when you stepped out of your apartment!"


    "The fire should''ve made marred you beyond recognition and all that should''ve been left of you was a very small pile of ash," Looking tired beyond his years, he said "Are you really human, Jack? Because no one normal could''ve lived,"


    "What do you mean? Of course I''m human. I am human aren''t I?" I asked apprehensively when faced of the prospect of not knowing even what I was.


    "You tell me, Jack. You tell me," Jason said in tone that sent shivers down my spine and chilled me down to my heart.


    The blob slid off of me and plopped onto the floor with a squish and moved into a corner of the room "It looks like you''re all done now, Jack. I would tell you to keep it easy for a few weeks but we both know that''s not happening, now is it?" A muttered apology was I could say to his disapproving face. I pulled myself up and asked for my clothes with a silent look. Jason went to the closet in the corner and tossed at me my belongings.


    As I shimmied into my clothes, I said "A stupid question but since I just got a case that requires me go back to the Old World and I was wondering how I could get there to begin with,"


    "What a odd question, why would anyone ever want to go back to that boring old place?" he replied in shock at the question.


    "Trust me, I don''t want to be there any more than you do but it''s out of my hands now," I said with a fake shudder as I finally finished putting on my clothes. "Well, I don''t know myself but I''m certain you know suitably dreadful people that do," Jason told me in a dry voice. With a grimace I said "Yeah, but I was hoping that I wouldn''t have to talk to them since someone of them weird enough to scare even me," "Well, that''s sounds like a personal problem," Jason said as opened the door and walked out. As the door closed he said to me "If that Incident in the bar has anything to do with your case then you''d better man up and meet with them,"


    Remembering that Austin was the one that brought out the bottle and gotten me nearly damn killed, I froze in righteous anger and wrath "I''m going to wring his fucking neck," in a quiet and serious whisper that was the mark of a madman. "I''m going to chop him into a million pieces and burn his precious fucking bar down," I continued in that same insane whisper. I stood there for a few more minutes uttering uncomfortable things like that for a while before my rage turned into a cold, blue sun.


    Promising to myself that I would unleash a flood of force upon him that would make Krakatoa look like a baking soda volcano, I prepared a face that would cow even Giants and walked out of the door. And into a hallway that looked a scene from a bad war flick with bodies thrown with such power that they stuck to the walls like a smushed fly and with rubble littering the hallway like the aftermath of a child''s tantrum.


    Staring around me with an impassive face that hid the shock in my mind, I said "I know that you''re there somewhere. Come on out and make it easier for both of us," in a voice so cold it was like thin ice over a lake in winter that threatened to break at any moment and send everyone plummeting to their deaths.


    "As expected of the infamous Jack "The Slicer" Millory to see through my Veil," said something behind me in a voice that tried to pass itself off as a human''s voice but subtly failed. Turning around with no sign of fear in my body language, I arrogantly raised my face head and said "If you know who I am then I can''t imagine why you would ever want to mess with me,"


    As her body gradually appeared like the Cheshire Cat, I saw a woman that would have been beautiful if not for the multitude of gaping mouths scattered around her neck. She had dark skin and midnight hair with a slim body that came from running after scores of frightened bounty, she held a barbed-wire whip in each of her 4 hands stained with crimson blood.


    "Liking what you see, Jack?" She said mockingly as her mouths laughed along. "I would''ve kept away from you if the payout on you wasn''t so high and well, a lady has to make ends meet somehow doesn''t she?" She said teasingly.


    "But if you give the artifact you stole from the Smithsonian I''ll let you live,"


    I kept a stony demeanor and kept quiet. What did she mean? I haven''t been anywhere except the bar and here. Besides, why did she think I would have it if I had just heard of it this morning.


    But I had bigger problem because the woman in front of me was The Gaping Maw, a bounty hunter that hounded her prey like a demon and tortured them with her mouths that bit off chunks off flesh as her whips tore off limbs. She was going to be a dangerous kill.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    "Cat got your tongue, Jack? Then it looks I''ll have to make introductions myself!" She called as she flashed her whips out at me in such a way that I wondered if they weren''t alive themselves. Quickly maneuvering myself between them with my superhuman reflexes and moving towards her, I let out a bolt of force out at her that was swallowed up by one of mouths that closed for a while to process it before opening again.


    Cursing my luck, I danced around her increasingly fast whips in the narrow corridor, but as we walked closer to each other they began to score hits. Luckily, my coat took the brunt of the blow and had large chunks of leather get ripped out , the coat then flapped in a way akin to a shudder that made it look like it had a mind of its own.


    We got closer slowly but surely, like a slow-motion image of two trains on a collision course. By now we were mere feet away and there were bloody cuts across my face sending down a fountain of blood everywhere, turning the floor slick with gore.


    I knew those mouths would chew up my athame like a starving dog with steak, so I reached into one of my coat pockets and grabbed a bottle of Infernal acid which I casually tossed onto her neck. Screaming with scorching pain, she dropped her whips and grabbed at her neck which only made things worse as the acid stuck to her hands like glue. She tried to move her hands but found them stuck and unable to fight back in her current position she glared at me with eyes that were like a lava flow.


    "You just made this personal, Jack. Now I''ll never stop trying to kill you," she told me as she was on her knees trying to not die.


    "Oh, just shut up and know when you''ve lost," I derisively said as I incapacitated her with a series of kicks enhanced with my Gift of force which made them hit like an elephant and left her careening across the hall.


    I continued walking, ignoring my stinging wounds, and when I stepped over her body I noticed Jason lying next to the wall breathing heavily with a hand pressing against a blood-stained patch on his coat with green light pouring out of his hand. He looked up at me balefully and said "God, you attract trouble like STDs with a whore don''t you,"


    "Thanks, but I think you could''ve used a better analogy,"


    "Fuck you,"


    I sighed and asked "Are you going to be fine?"


    "Yes, but I think the faster you leave the better,"


    "Will do,"


    And that was when something that was mix between a mountain gorilla and a beetle burst through the wall with a shower of white flakes pouring out and leaving reverberations throughout the hospital.


    "I COME FOR THE ONE KNOWN AS JACK, SON OF MILLORY! HE HAS STOLEN SOMETHING THAT IS MINE BY BLOOD AND TRADITION!" He shouted at the only ones in the hallway that seemed increasingly small.


    "How many people are looking for that thing, anyhow?" I thought to myself as my patience was tried time and time again.


    I dreaded fighting that thing hand-to-hand when I saw the rippling muscles under his exoskeleton, so I pulled out my gun with my special imaginary bullets that hit just as hard as the real ones and shot at him.


    He fell like the Titanic sank, slowly at first but then suddenly and all at once; which was what was supposed to happen but my bullets just ricocheted off his shell and bounced dangerously close to us. All that seemed to happen was to enrage him.


    "AS EXPECTED OF THE THIEF JACK TO ATTACK WITH NO WARNING AND AT COWARD''S RANGE!"


    I didn''t know why he was shouting so loudly when we were the only ones here.


    "Jack, if you don''t mind try to avoiding shooting at him since I''m fairly immobilized as of right now," Jason said to me in a mock whisper as he pointed to his wound.


    "Oh. Sorry about that,"


    "Thank you. And I know how to kill him so if you could draw him closer I''ll take care of him," He said back.


    "I think we''ll have more difficulty in keeping him away from us than drawing him towards us," I said apprehensively as I saw him getting ready to charge as he grew mad over being ignored.


    "Good,"


    Shrugging my shoulders, I pulled out a flashbang and lobbed it at him. Blinded, he rushed at us like a drunk football player, all power and no finesse. He close the distance at a scary rate, eating up the meters like a horse on open plains.


    The Doctor took out a surgical knife and waited. I tried not to flinch at the mass hurtling at us like a freight train. Waiting until he was certain of his throw, he threw the knife in a motion too perfect to be the product of mere practice; it was the Godhand''s other ability at work, the ability to see trajectories and momentum like the rest of us see color.


    It stuck itself into the beast''s skull like a machete cutting open a pineapple. The body continued moving on sheer momentum and slid its way next to my feet.


    All in all, it was a cleaner kill than I could have possibly managed on my best day, I was just a thug with more weight to throw around than the average one.


    "A little help?" Jason asked as he help up a hand. I grabbed it and pulled him up. Dusting off himself, he said "I think you should really get going now," while still holding my hand like a iron vise and staring into my eyes intensely. Nodding my head, I got the Hell out of there.


    As I moved next to the elevators, the doors suddenly opened and a group of heavily armed men poured out. Ignoring me and pushing me to the side, they said "Doctor! Are you alright, Sir!".


    With a good-natured smile at their late arrival, he said "I am now, but I will appreciate help in checking if the rest of the patients are fine as well," "Of course Sir!" They replied as they formed a wall around him and they began clearing the rooms of the patients I haven''t even spared a single thought about. This caused a surprising amount of discomfort in me.


    "Wait a second, Jack," Jason said which caused me to tense and prepare my spells in case he decided I was somehow responsible to the damage to his hospital (and I was technically responsible).


    Tossing a set of keys at me, he continued "Take my car, it has a useful amount of hidden tricks in her but don''t scratch her up too badly you hear?"


    Surprised at his generosity, all I could manage was a stoic nod as I stepped into the elevator.


    Out of curiosity, I didn''t take it all the way down to the lobby but instead picked a random floor to disembark on. I walked out and read the sign that said "Clinical Ward Of Divine HIV" which made me turn back into the elevator and press the lobby button repeatedly as I wanted nothing to do with that.


    The doors opened back up with a hiss and I stepped out. "I still need a drink," I thought as I searched for the bar. All I found was a caf¨¦, which would have to do for now.


    The caf¨¦ was quaint, quaint in that it looked hospitable, happy, and family-friendly which was everything Avalon was not. There were smiling waitresses everywhere putting smiles on the faces of children. "Why are they smiling if they''ll probably die within the year to whatever terminal illness they have," I thought confusedly. Shrugging my shoulders, I loudly asked for a beer, which wonderfully disrupted the atmosphere they had going on. Earning glares almost simultaneously from the waitresses, I asked for one again but louder.


    "I''ll be just right with you, sir," one of them, a perky young blonde, replied with a fake smile that fooled no one. Not caring, I pulled a chair out and sat down. After a deliberately long time, she came back and asked for what I wanted.


    "I said I wanted a beer. Did you not hear me shouting?" I said curiously.


    "We have grape juice if that''s want you wanted?" She said in that same fake smile.


    "Can I have a strawberry milkshake?" I said


    "Of course, that''ll be just a second," She said as she walked away from me with a flip of her hair.


    She came back with it and slammed it down with a bit more force than necessary, sending bits of pink milk flying onto my coat.


    "You know, I just killed 3 people in the last twelve hours. You might wanna treat me better,"


    "I don''t give a shit if you killed the fucking Pope. You can''t just walk in here and be an asshole," She said with anger uncharacteristic with her small size. "These kids are going through an experience you can''t possibly fathom,"


    "Ooh, you said fathom. You get a point for using a Big Girl word," I said just to be impertinent.


    Trying not to shake with rage, she said "I can''t believe how much of an absolute ass you are,"


    "Let me guess, you''re from Earth," I said, catching her off guard.


    "Yes, I am but how did you know and why is that important?" She said in confusion.


    "And so is the rest of the waitresses in here, right?" I continued, as if hadn''t spoken at all.


    "Yes, but you still haven''t answered me yet," She answered.


    "I could tell by the way you all smiled," I replied simply.


    "Our smiles?" She asked, even more confused.


    "You smile like you genuinely believed that there''s light at the end of the tunnel, that Hope is still in Pandora''s Box. True Avalon residents don''t smile like that," I clarified when I saw that she didn''t get it.


    "Oh? And why don''t they smile like that anymore?" She said in a voice that was mix of curiosity and anger.


    "Because we know just much we are screwed. Royally, completely, and utterly screwed," I answered "You do realize that, don''t you? And those kids are from Earth too, right? They came here after hearing of the Nosferatu Hospital and how it can cure all of their little boo-boos, didn''t they?"


    "Yes. The parents brought them here despite of how horrid you people all are and how despicable Avalon is. I don''t know why you say that bringing them here was a mistake when you must know of how amazing this hospital is. I''ve seen the doctors here cure people of Alzheimer''s and letting them remember the faces of their loved ones, I''ve seen them give veterans back their legs after they''ve been blown off long ago, and I''m ready to be impressed again by having them during the cancer these kids have," She said all of this in a single, well-composed breath.


    "Don''t get your hopes up too high, we have too much things that are far more important than saving Poor Little Jimmy or Sick Baby Susie. We have the technology to save them, but the time? No, we don''t," I said in a voice that came out more jaded than I had intended it to.


    "I think you should leave now," She said with ice in her veins.


    "Will do," I said as I grabbed my milkshake and made for the glass doors. As I stood up, I noticed that our conversation had not gone unnoticed by the parents and children, now they had doubt in their smiles and tears were imminent in their eyes.


    With some regret at this (I don''t like making children cry, I''m not a monster), I walked back into the streets of Avalon and decided that I would get some more information on this artifact that some many other third-parties wanted. I would not get surprised like this again, I resolved to myself. Where to start? The Glass Consortium? The Rain Nightclub? Or should I do it the old-fashioned way and beat up on some informants of mine? Well, I was sure to get some information one way or another and decided to go the Nightclub first. I wonder if I''m still banned from that place since I last burned it down when I found out that they were trafficking child slaves? Well, I guess I could always burn it down again if I''m not still banned.

 Chapter 4 When It Rains...

    Weather in Avalon is an odder phenomenon than on Earth; it rarely occurs, but when it does people run for the proverbial hills. The last time it happened was when I was 27, and when it did it marked the beginning of a catastrophe like it always did. That time it was The Dimensional Tears, named by both the fact for the first time our safe isolation was truly threatened when the skies ripped open and let in a horde of Otherworlders.


    They fell upon us like an avalanche, destroying centuries of work and knowledge. They killed The Servitors, the faceless, robed monks that carried on the Last Will of Merlin, and with them we were cast into a period of chaos. They left us with no leadership, no guidance for the first time.


    In their absence, men and women both great and monstrous, picked up the torch; some were better intentioned then others, like The New Queen who picked up the mantle of Queen Quinevere to beat back the darkness and opened up more institutions of Good than any other, like Kid Mordred who is a shadowy figure of the most heinous persuasion that killed children by burning the house they were in, that raided the Church Arcane and stole priceless artifacts, and who slaughtered countless good people.


    Nonetheless, they provided us the leadership we desperately needed and saved us from ruin


    Lost in my thoughts, I didn''t even noticed that I was being followed until he shouted "Jack! I need to talk to you, Jack!"


    By God, how many people want that artifact!


    Sighing, I withdrew my gun and turned around.


    "Listen, I''m having a very bad day right now so if you don''t mind walking off since I don''t have the artifact, I''ll appreciate that greatly,"


    "Woah! WoahWoahWoahWoah! Wait! I don''t know what artifact you''re talking but I just want to talk!" He stammered out in a frightened manner.


    "How do I know you aren''t going to kill you?"


    "Kill you?! Do I look like some crazy person?" He squawked out


    Now that I had more time to look at him, I saw that he didn''t look like a killer. He looked more like an accountant in his suspenders and striped shirt. He wasn''t very intimidating when he looked like a skinny tree stump. He had hair like someone one put a brown wig over an egg.


    "Well, here in Avalon not everything is as they appear but I admit that I''ve never seen a killer that looked as mediocre as you so I''ll give you a chance,"


    It looked like he didn''t hear me since he had his bugged-out eyes staring at my gun like it was a rabid dog that would leap on him if he took his eyes off of it.


    "Haven''t you ever seen a gun before?" I asked sarcastically.


    "No! They''ve been outlawed for decades! I don''t know why anyone would ever want to have something as barbaric as that!" He choked out in genuine shock.


    Sighing I said "Would it make you feel better if I put it away?"


    "Yes! Very!" He relied gratefully with a relieved sigh.


    Exaggerating my movements, I put my gun back into my pocket slowly and said "I can tell you aren''t from around here and you won''t last long in Avalon, so how about we get off the streets and you can tell me why you felt like you needed to chase me down?"


    "Um. Well. That sounds fine, I guess," He answered uncertainly for some reason.


    I internally shook my head as I marveled at the meekness of Old Worlders, I grabbed his arm and pulled him into a nearby restaurant that specialized in Demon Flesh; they were having a special on Fallen Angels.


    He was staring around like a kid''s first visit to the candy store, all wide-mouthed and shiny eyes, so I said "Listen, at least tell me your name first," to pull him back into reality and prevent him from drooling then and there.


    "Uh. Sorry, I was distracted by all of this-Did you know they are having a special on Fallen Angels!" His voice got high-pitched at the last bit as he began to become sidetracked again.


    Exasperatingly, I took out my stun gun and shot him in the chest to make sure I got his attention (also since I just got tired of vying for his attention). He spasmed like he was having a stroke and hit the floor like a sack of rotten potatoes.


    I bent down and picked him up in my arms which sounded more impressive than it was since he was as light as a feather, and said to the manservant that was watching us the whole time "Table for two and a bottle of Black Pandemonium ASAP,"


    "Of course, Good Sirs, that''ll be just a moment," he smoothly said as he lead us to a table discreetly hidden from view of the other diners that were looking at us askance since here I was, carrying a spasming person like there was nothing wrong with that whatsoever.


    "I sat him down on his chair and took back my stun gun which allowed him to finally stop spasming but he still shook randomly for a while afterwards.


    "Now that I got your attention, do you mind telling what the Devil is your name, you sad piece of camel shit," I said calmly like I hadn''t just verbally abused him.


    Gaping at me open-mouthed, which seem to be a recurring thing with him, and gasped out "You just shot me," in a voice that didn''t quite believe that it actually happened.


    "Yes. Yes, I did since you were being too much of a tourist to be of any use to either of us. And I don''t like repeating myself so unless you tell me your name, I''ll shoot you with my other gun. The one with actual bullets," I said with my patience thinning.


    "My name is Lionel Josephs and I need your help," he paused dramatically for effect and waited for me ask for more.


    Tired of his antics, I reached back in my pocket for my stun gun with a sigh and Lionel''s eyes went huge again and he sputtered out "Waitwaitwaitwaitwait. Just calm down for a second and let me finish!" in a fast-paced vein. I took my hand back out of my jacket and placed them on the table and said "Then stop being a ponce and tell me what''s going on but if I have to repeat myself again, I. Will. Shoot. You," I enunciated those last words slowly and with emphasis on shoot.


    Understanding that I would in fact shoot him, he cut the crap out and said in a business-like manner "The reason I came into this thieve''s den of a place is that I''m looking for my sister," I was impressed by how much he could focus when given the chance.


    "I looked all over Washington for a week for her and plastered posters all over looking for her but she seemed to disappear off the face of the Earth. So that''s when I thought that if she literally wasn''t on Earth then she must be in Avalon and even if she wasn''t in here then there must be someone the Third Eye Corporation that could at least point in the right direction so I could at least know where to start to even begin to find her," he paused to take a breath and to calm his slowly rising voice.


    That was when the waiter came back with my Black Pandemonium that looked even more unappetizing than usual. Lionel stared at the smoke that came off of it that briefly formed into images of tormented faces before quickly crumbling back into smoke. He stared at the black foam that bubbled in the bottle and at the sulfurous smell that radiated from it.


    "You''re drinking that?!" He finally managed to say after staring at it in shock and wonder.


    "Yes. Do you want some?" I asked inquiringly and started to pour him a glass. The corrosive substances in the brew threatened to eat away the very glass it was poured in.


    "What is that," Lionel asked in a quiet voice that held both curiosity and horror at what he saw.


    "Black Pandemonium. The favored brew of Sinners and Failures in all of Avalon and possibly in different worlds too. It tastes like liquid asphalt mixed with rotten eggs, but fortunately it doesn''t hurt your liver at all. Just your immortal soul by marring it unrecoverably beyond any hope of Redemption and by eating away at it like a tapeworm," I said in an all too cheerful voice as I reached for my deathly cold bottle and drank it like the alcoholic son-of-a-bitch I was, in big gulps one after another.


    "So tell me more about yourself and why I should give a flying fuck about your probably already dead sister?" I said callously, not giving a damn about his dainty little feelings.


    Ignoring my deliberately antagonizing words, he replied to me "While I know that I don''t look like much, I am the founder of the Josephs-Dawson Center For The Magically Gifted and while I don''t mean to brag, I am a powerful sorcerer by the United Nation''s Standards Of Magic so I was able to gather like-minded individuals that wanted to educate the next generation of wizards. We now have 27 schools throughout the continental United States with more to come and we have managed to raise up 250,000 United Nations Credit that is usable in any UN country that will be yours if you merely manage to take me to my sister," he said all of this in a long, drawn-out breath of a man that truly loved his work and the people he was helping.


    While I probably won''t be using any of that money any time soon it''ll be good to know that I will have emergency funds to use on Earth in case I ever have to run from Avalon, besides how hard can finding someone be?"


    Curiously, I asked "If you have that much then you must''ve tried going to the Third Eye, so why didn''t they try to find your sister?"


    Reluctantly, he said "They told that since she wasn''t from Avalon they didn''t care what happened to Sandra, obviously they phrased it in a more polite way than that but that was the gist of it,"


    I nodded my head at that since the Corporation was as prejudiced as they were powerful, but I would''ve expected the money to change their minds. "But why did you pick me instead of some other independent Seer?"


    He said "I think Sandra got in over her head and I needed someone that could get her out of trouble as well as find her in the first place. I heard that you knew people that could find her so here I am standing in front of you,"


    Now that I knew how he found me I moved on to other business "You mentioned something about a standard of magic?" I said curiously since I wanted to know how I stack up by their measure.


    Given the chance to enthuse about something he was so obviously passionate about, he said in a rapid manner "Yes! When we first found about Avalon mages started coming out of the woodwork like ants and we knew that we had to have at least a semblance of order so we drew up a table of magical power to help us categorize them,"


    Taking out a ballpoint pen, he started writing on a piece of scratch paper he found and showed me the chart he drew.


    According to the chart, there were three main levels of wizardry: from the lowest to the highest it went from Mage to Wizard to Sorcerer and within in each level there were nine tiers of strength. This seemed completely arbitrary since the words mage, sorcerer, and wizard are practically synonymous to each other.


    "And how strong is a Mage compared to a Sorcerer?" I asked wanting to see how strong they were.


    Lifting his chin up, he said "While a Mage might be able to do anything from guessing how a coin to land to summoning a small flame, a Tier 3 Sorcerer such as myself can throw fireballs the size of a golf ball several times a day before passing out. So as you can see, I am quite a formidable opponent," he said all of this with no sign of joking.


    Amused by how much they praised themselves for managing to do what an Avalonian child could do when he was 6, I said to him "You do realize then, that your strongest "Sorcerer" will get absolutely demolished by any odd magic caster of ours if we decide that we want to come in and invade?"


    "Well, but then they''ll be facing the combined might of the world''s armies and Sorcerers!" He said, not seeing how silly he sounded.


    I said to him "I''ll find her but I''ll need you to take me to Earth,"


    If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.


    "Why would you want to come to Earth?" He asked not knowing why I would want to go there when so many other Avaloners wanted nothing to do with the Old World.


    "I have business there," was all I had to offer to him as an explanation.


    "Well, I will gladly take you back with me as long as you take me to Sandra," Standing up he offered me a handshake to seal the deal but I just sat and finished off the rest of my beer. When I did stand up I completely ignored it and told him "If you don''t mind I need to do something before I can get started on looking for your sister, and if you want to come along you''re welcome to it but you might want to stay behind where it''s safe,"


    As expected, he shook his said and said "No, I''m not leaving your side until we find her," I knew that he would say that since if I had family I would do the same for them.


    Smirking I said, "You might regret saying that when you find out where we''re going,"


    "And where''s that," he said in confusion


    "Club Rain," I said, not offering anything else which left him scrambling to keep up with me in worry as I quickly tossed money onto the table and strode out of the restaurant with long steps.


    Club Rain or The Rain Nightclub as it is called formally is a place that shows the evil of Avalon in the truest sense with crimes of all kind happening there very second. You can find Neptunian Meth being peddled and sold in the back, you can buy weapons of mass destruction on layaway, you can bet money in the Pit that makes drug addicts hopped up on Rise, a drug that took away the sensation of pain and made you feel like The Second Coming Of Christ, face off against trolls, you could pay money to watch dogs tear apart children, and things that even I won''t mention.


    It was guarded by warlocks that didn''t care about being hidden but practically screamed out their presence in their gaudy robes and jewels. They promised violence in the form of bursts of green fire that would burn until you were melted down into a pile of sludge. They were strong enough to keep out even the Combat Mages, which was why I decided to just lob a grenade at them and watch their bodies fly.


    Ignoring Lionel''s shocked expression, I stepped over their bodies and used my Gift to blow the door in and walked in. Lionel followed behind me uncertainly, trying not to stare at the bodies around him.


    "I''m back, boys! You all know what happened the last time I came here so how about you give me what I want and I''ll get out of your hair! Or you know, I could burn this place down again?" I said cheerfully with a wide smile directed towards the shocked patrons who did not expect their night of wild debauchery to be disturbed so openly.


    Finally getting over their shock, they all leapt up to their feet and started casting magic to kill me. Waiting until they unleashed on me their magic, I dived for the floor and pulled Lionel with me to avoid the certain death racing above me. I pulled out another grenade and threw it at the largest clump of casters. The spray of body parts and furniture did wonders for getting my point across to the rest of them. Ignoring Lionel who looked like he was trying not to descend into hysterics while on the floor, I got back up to look at the socialites with brain on their dresses and blood on their tuxedos.


    I looked around me slowly and saw tight-lipped faces staring at me, I pointed at a random Club Rain employee and said to her "Did I have to kill a bunch of your customers? No. But did I enjoy killing the scum that call themselves people? Yes. So you should really take me and my dear friend, Lionel," I said with a smile as I pulled him up when I looked for him and found that he was still on the floor "To Don Ferdinand before I kill anymore of your fragile and rich customers!"


    She opened and closed her mouth like a fish suddenly thrust onto land but before she could gather herself as she tried to parse through the wanton violence in front of her, a burly half-giant said to me "If you would allow me to escort you fine gentlemen in her place to the Don,"


    I tilted my head and said "I would be ever-so-grateful to you if you would,"


    Finally managing to speak, Lionel said to me in a quiet whisper "You can''t just kill those people like that, Jack. You just can''t,"


    "Lionel. The people I killed deserved it, believe me. They deserved it a million times over for the things they have done," I said quietly to him like a mother explaining to her son not to talk to strangers.


    Wordlessly accepting my explanation because if he didn''t he would not be able to accept what he saw today, he limply followed me down the velvet stairs hidden behind the bar. I absentmindedly wondered if I was going to get killed or not by the Don''s troops but I decided to not worry too much about it.


    The Don is a powerful man that surrounds himself with loyal retainers and protective wards, he controls the Avalon drug trade which brings him an inconceivable amount of money and which gives him an iron grip over the people of the streets.


    When I walked into the room, I was deeply impressed by the sheer amount of weaponry packed into the room. I mean, who the Hell keeps a freaking nuke in their office! The warlocks that packed the room were also rather intimidating as well, they weren''t going to be as easy to kill as the ones outside, these were the real deal.


    I examined the man in front of me, Don Ferdinand, and saw a old man that still is brimming over with power and intelligence still glinted from his gray eyes. He was a skinny man wrapped around a skeletal frame that looked like he would snap in half if he stood against a stiff wind but that was just a guise made to catch the foolish off guard. He wore the classic black suit with red tie that would not be out of place in a action movie.


    "Care to explain to me as to why you felt the need to waltz in here and blow up my fine establishment," he sufferingly said to me in a tone more quizzical than mad.


    "If I don''t show people that I''m willing to do anything than how would anything get done?" I replied cheekily to hide the fact I was secretly furiously praying inside that I wouldn''t get vaporized on the spot.


    "Well, Jack you have my attention now, so do you mind telling me what you came here for?"


    "What do you know about the artifact in the Smithsonian?" I said bluntly


    With a wolffish smile he said "You mean the old thing that everybody thinks you''ve stolen?"


    With a simple nod of my head, I showed him that that was in fact the thing I was asking about.


    With a chuckle, he leaned backwards into his leather chair that was his throne and said "I don''t know what the thing even looks like and I seriously doubt that any of the people that were chasing after you do either. I believe that they are just hounds sent after you to keep you too busy fighting for your life to see the bigger picture,"


    "The bigger picture? What bigger picture," I asked interested in what it was.


    "I, for one, don''t have the slightest idea but I know there must be one since that would be what I do if I was them. After all, why would I even want the thing if it wasn''t part of a greater plan I wanted to set in motion but keep hidden?" He explained to me while puffing on a cigar he picked up from the table and lit with a thought.


    "So you think that I''m being led around like a dog on a leash?" I asked angrily at the idea.


    "No, Jack. I know you are. But who''s your friend standing over there?" He asked with curiosity.


    Extending his hand, Lionel said "My name is Lionel Josephs, pleased to meet you,"


    Grabbing his hand before the Don could shake it I said "You might not want to do that, the Don is a life mage which means if you so much as touch him, he can kill in a hundred different ways from making your heart give out to giving you an aneurysm,"


    "Oh, that would''ve been bad. Thanks, Jack" He said with his trepidation palpable


    "Do you really think so low of me, Jack. I wouldn''t dare do that to a friend," he said with mock hurt.


    "But we aren''t your friends are we, now?" I countered.


    "Indeed, you are nothing but a thorn in my side that plagued me ever since we met," he hissed out with sudden anger as he stood up. He motioned at his goons and said "Whoever kills Jack will get a handsome reward and become an officer!"


    With graceful confidence, they all pulled out their short staffs and fired upon me, making it look like an inferno appeared from all sides around me that rushed at me rapidly. Activating my Timestop for the second time today even though I knew that might have repercussions even worse than what was in front of me, I pulled Lionel with me as I fell backwards. Nonetheless, one of the blasts came dangerously close to my face and gave me a 3rd-degree burn on my right arm. Yanking him back up, we raced up the stairs to escape to safety as fire rampaged in the room behind us.


    "You inbred imbeciles! Why did you set fire to my office!" I heard Ferdinand roar as the space around him became a furnace. "Never mind! Just go up the stairs and follow him! Make sure he never returns except in a body bag or you''ll be the ones in it!"


    Grinning to myself in spite of the predicament we were in, I noted that while I didn''t set the Club on fire myself, they did it for me instead which was even better and made almost getting killed worth it. But that was when the cost for using my Gift kicked in, thankfully I didn''t use it for long so it wasn''t too bad but falling to your knees coughing up blood from lungs isn''t a too great of a feeling.


    Pulling a handkerchief from his breast pocket, Lionel handed it to me wordlessly and I took it gratefully to use it to wipe up the blood from the floor in case Don Ferdinand found it and were to use it to cast a thaumaturgical spell to melt my insides out a thousands miles away.


    "I take it that it didn''t go as well as you planned," Lionel asked me sarcastically.


    "Considering the fact that I didn''t have a plan, I would like to believe that it went splendidly," I replied whimsically as I found myself getting more injured than I had ever on any other of my cases, they were all fairly straightforward until this one; I went and found my target, killing those who deserved killing and sparing those who were just in it for the money, and going home drunk after spending the money on expensive drink and women.


    What was it about this case that was so difficult?


    Shaking my head and clearing my thoughts, I said to Lionel "I got as much information as I could so I think it''s high time that we started looking for your sister,"


    Brightening up like a light bulb that got switched on for the first time, he beamed at me happily and said "Great! Where should we start!"


    "Well, starting a ritual that requires me to offer up my blood to the moon goddess Selene sounds like a great idea. Let''s just go back to my apartment to catch my breath before hand so I don''t killed while doing it," I said calmly like what I suggested was a walk in the park and not a dangerous ritual form time immemorial.


    "Oh. That sounds possibly less fun than what we just went through," he said after a while.


    "Well, you do want to find your sister don''t you?"


    "Well, yes but I don''t feel comfortable with you constantly risking your life for me," He said in reply.


    "Then if it makes you feel any better, you''ll be doing it along with me; offering up your blood and all!" I said while I slapped his back comradely in partnership.


    "Wait! What!" He asked scared.


    A wild grin was all I had in response to that as I hailed for a taxi to take us back to my apartment to risk our lives again.

 Chapter 5 Blood Rites

    I opened the door and motioned for Lionel to get into the cab. He hesitantly moved his hand towards the open door and said "Are you sure this cab isn''t connected to some dark and sinister plot?"


    "Why would it?" I said blithely in reply


    "Because everything else we did so far was either weird like the restaurant with Fallen Angel meat or needlessly bloody like when you killed those people or when we nearly got burned alive by the flames from the Don''s bodyguards," he said with worry fraught in his voice. A sign characteristic of a man that was quickly acclimating to Avalon''s dangerous, and sometimes almost silly, daily events.


    With a warm smile I said while putting my hand on his shoulder "There won''t be anything that''ll kill you in this cab at the very least and it''s just a cab that is as normal as anything can be in Avalon,"


    "I hope so," he said while still eyeing the cab seats for any potential dangers.


    Shaking my head with mirth, I gently pushed him into the cab and climbed in after him. While the seats were yellowed after years of use and negligence, they were a welcome feeling after the constant running around we had done today. Ignoring Lionel''s grossed out face when he noticed the rat that scurried on the floor, I said to the driver of the car, a giant eye where the steering wheel should have been, "Take us to the Galahad quarter of the Round Table, and if you manage to get us there safely I''ll give you a tip,"


    Wordlessly acknowledging my directions, the eye closed its eyelids and the cab started moving at a speed not relative to its shoddy appearance down the street.


    Leaning back into the seat, I turned around to face Lionel and asked him brightly "So how are you finding Avalon?"


    Closing his eyes and letting out a huge sigh at the question, he opened them back up and said with a serious look "Well no matter how plain weird my day has been so far, it still beats a Monday at the school,"


    Chuckling at his joke, I punched him lightly on the arm and said back to him "Ain''t that the truth, ain''t that the truth,"


    Still laughing I looked to my left so I could see where we were and saw a gaggle of animated lawn gnomes frantically running for freedom from a mage that had a panicked expression on his face as he tried to catch them. "Probably just an experiment gone wrong," I thought idly.


    After a awkward pause, Lionel meekly tapped my hand and said "You said something about offering up our blood to a goddess?" like he hoped he simply somehow misheard what I told him earlier. Smiling at his brittle expression, I said to him "Indeed! It''s a time-honored tradition! Besides, even if we didn''t have to do it so we could find your sister quicker, I would like for us to do it together just so we could appease the Gods even a little bit! It''s always a good idea to have an auspicious start to an daring adventure!"


    Looking at me in horror, he said to me "You must be senile. You are one crazy, old loon if you believe that somehow mutilating ourselves would appease nonexistent gods. I don''t know why I didn''t ask you this before when you first told me about this but are you possibly a lunatic?"


    "In any other place I would be crazy but here in Avalon where the past still has a foothold, the Gods are still very much real and they have an even realer power. They still walk among us like they did your legends. They still have priests and pretty young things to cater to their every whim. They still have champions and are anointing more everyday. And let me tell you, more than one adventure has been ruined by a not suitably satisfied God," I said matter-of-factly back to him.


    Deciding to let that matter drop, he said to me out-of-the-blue "You know, when I first met you I thought you were just an old psycho but now that I''ve gotten to meet you I don''t think you''re all that bad,"


    "And my heart grew three sizes too big," I replied to him with a grin.


    "No seriously, you aren''t as bad of a guy I initially pegged you for. While you do kill people, you do it for all the right reasons. And even though you would never survive back on Earth because you''d probably kill everybody around during your first airport check-in, you are as good of a man as you can be after the crazy things you''ve probably gone through. So I guess what I''m trying to say is thank you," he said while looking into my eyes.


    Not knowing how to respond to this, I simply turned my face away from him and looked back out the window. I simply didn''t know how to respond to this because while I had enough people that hated my very existence and that promised to kill me in a million different ways to form a line to the moon and back, I have never had someone thank me with that sincerity. Even my clients just paid me the predetermined amount of money and left without a word or a word of gratitude. I was confused.


    I asked the driver how long until we would arrive in a gruffer voice than normal to mask my suddenly too touched heart.


    Since he couldn''t reply verbally since he was just an eye after all, he sent a series of mental images that while I couldn''t quite express properly in words that still managed to convey when we would arrive in a way that was both vague and precise.


    Apparently he had projected them into Lionel''s mind as well, since he blinked rapidly and muttered to no one in particular "The surprises never end with you Jack, do they?"


    Cackling at his rhetorical question, I said "As long as I live and breath, me and the people around me will have a day that will always be eventful at least. Safe? Probably not. Exciting? Absolutely,"


    Smiling at my answer, he said to me "You know, if things ever go south for you here in Avalon which I sincerely doubt, remember that I''m the head of a rapidly expanding company that''ll be grateful if you could bring your particular expertise to it and which will always have a place for you in whatever capacity as long I''m in charge,"


    Amused at his gesture, I replied with a wave of my hand "If things ever get bad enough for me here in Avalon for me to run to Earth and become an employee, I doubt I''ll be alive to take you up on that offer,"


    "Well, just in case you managed to get out of alive out of whatever shitpile you''ve managed to dig yourself in, know you still have one bridge left after burning all your old ones," he said with persistence.


    Answering him with only a smile, I noted that we were close to our stop and said "Get ready to disembark and get ready for that self-mutilation!"


    Mock-shuddering, he said to me jokingly "Can we still go back to that nightclub and get shot at again?"


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    "Well, we''ll probably will again when the Don''s men find out where we are,"


    "God no, I completely forgot about that," he said glumly.


    Hopping out of the car after throwing money at the driver which was absorbed by the seats and moving on without him, I called out to him "If you want to, you know, find your sister stop dallying and follow me,"


    I could hear him scrambling to get out and catch up to me "Wait up!" He shouted at me as he rushed on after me.


    After he managed to catch up, he asked me why we were getting off when we weren''t any where close to my apartment since we were surrounded by stores and no housing.


    "I don''t trust the taxi with where my home is located because he''s probably telling where we are the Don''s men right now," I explained to him.


    "And you trust me? I''m genuinely touched," he said happily and with a smile.


    "Well, not really but I could kill you easily enough even if you decide to betray me," When he heard that he stop walking for a while as that soaked in and with a sigh he started walking again until he was at my side again.


    "While I can''t say I''m happy to hear that, I can understand where you''re coming from,"


    "As long as you don''t fuck up too badly, you''ll be fine!"


    Not knowing what to say to this, Lionel instead elected to ask me where we were going.


    "Well, Avalon is divided into multiple districts from The Round Table where I live to Camelot where all the aristocrats live, and each district is divided into multiple sectors. Where we are going now is Lamorak where my home is located,"


    Nodding his understanding, Lionel followed me through the back alleys and turns of Galahad until we reached Lamorak. Pulling through the throngs of people around us into my apartment, I turned and said to him "Whatever you do, don''t hesitate. If you want to find Sandra then you must do so with all your heart, do you understand?"


    Showing that he understood, I pulled him into my living room and got butcher''s paper from my closet and placed them all around my floor. I grabbed a cold-forged silver bowl from my kitchen table and laid it in the center of it. I finally took some bandages from the first-aid kit and tossed them relatively close to it.


    I quickly took off my jacket and laid it on the couch while motioning for Lionel to do the same. After he finished, I pulled him to the floor with me and sat next to each other cross-legged.


    I said to him "This is probably going to hurt like Hell for you but you''ll have to power through it, okay?"


    "I understand,"


    Starting the ritual I chanted out loud "Oh Selene, Goddess of Avalonian Night and Wretched Hunt, Mistress of Haunting Winds and Deserted Lands, Guardian of the Blood and Knife accept our offering of freely given blood," at the end of that I grabbed my athame from my pocket and used it for what it was meant to be used as-as a sacrificial knife-and slit my wrist longways from my wrist to five inches up and let the blood flow freely onto the bowl. Still hanging my wrist over the steadily filling bowl, I passed my still blood-stained athame to Lionel. To his credit, he didn''t flinch at it and slit a cut just as deep and long as mine. He held his wrist over the bowl and let his life force mix with mine.


    Grabbing the bandages I had prepared before hand just for this, I wrapped them around my arm methodically and passed a roll to Lionel when I was finished. He was quiet as he bandaged himself.


    I imbued my magic into the blood and the blood started thrumming violently, threatening to spill over, until it started to drain to nowhere and then suddenly like the wind Selene appeared over us like a looming mountain and said "So why did my favorite blood sac call me this time," purring like a satisfied cat.


    "We need you to find Lionel''s sister," I said not wanting to mince words with a Goddess that I didn''t really like.


    "Oh? Something so mundane as that? That actually kind of disappoints me, I would''ve thought you would ask me about the other thing running at you like a hound but if you would want to spend your last days like this I won''t say anything,"


    "What do you mean! What hound! My last days?" I said in a rush as I tried to figure out what she was hinting at.


    "I bet that I would tell if you would just give me more of your delicious blood, My Darling," she continued in that disgusting purring voice.


    Struggling with my urge to ask for more and spill my blood, I took ahold of myself and ignored her. "Just tell me where Lionel''s missing sister is and only that. Nothing more. Nothing less,"


    Sighing, she lazily twirled her hair like a bored cheerleader that just found out that she had to babysit her little brother, she said "Really, if this is the last time we ever see each other I would want to end things on better terms but oh well. What can a Goddess do?"


    "Where. Is. Lionel''s. Sister," I grated out like two rocks rubbing on each other and glared at her. I was tired of her fucking games.


    "She''s at the Dragon''s Den in The Holy Grail district. About to get herself into a mess of trouble too so I would hurry up and get to her if I were you," she finally told me as she could tell I was about to snap.


    She then got sucked back into the bowl like a ship in a whirlpool and left us with an unnatural silence.


    "So. That was a Goddess. Not quite what I imagined," Lionel finally said as he processed it.


    "And what did you expect,"


    "Well. I expected her to be more Grecian and Noble and Majestic and stuff like that. Not like she was a rich stuck-up heiress waiting for daddy to die so she can play around with his money," Lionel said in disappointment.


    "Personally, I thought she sounded a bit more like a cheerleader after a football game,"


    "That too.,"


    We sat in silence for a while more, until he started talking to me again and said "It seems like there really is a bigger picture that neither of us know about, Jack. Should we be worried?"


    Not knowing the answer to that myself, I just stood up dizzily due to the blood loss and said "We should hurry up. You heard her, your sister is in trouble,"


    He wordlessly stood up as well, knowing I only said that to evade his question. We both walked out of my apartment and into the streets again like men walking to unknown but certain death.

 Chapter 6 In A Den Of Dragons And Bad Men

    As we walked towards the Holy Grail district, people scurried away from us like rats fleeing a sinking ship when they saw the faces of two men, one that has seen the face of Hell and the worst,that has seen the worst that Avalon has to offer next to the face of a man that would do anything for family-and after seeing both of us, they couldn''t decide who they feared more.


    We walked with fast but confident steps that ate up the miles like a beast that knew that her son was in trouble and may God have mercy on their souls because we sure as Hell won''t. I saw what it was like to be feared not because I was a monster but to be feared because I knew what I was doing was right. Lionel really became a lion beside me as his back stood straighter than any time before in his life and as his ice filled with icy steel.


    If you were to ask me why we walked and didn''t take a cab, I would''ve said "Does a knight ride to battle on a coach or does he blaze a fiery path?"


    We walked in deadly silence like that until we finally reached our destination, the oldest establishment in all Avalon, The Dragon''s Den.


    "Lionel, you know that I would fight by your side in this, but you have to understand what we are getting ourselves into because I need you to act now and not be acted on,"


    After hearing a silence that told me that he wanted me to continue, I said "This is where the most despicable men and women gathered when Merlin first created Avalon. They practiced their horrors here, from mating with demons to torturing unicorns to burning noble creatures, all to gain otherworldly power. While they no longer practice this flagrantly since the rest of us knew what would happen if we allowed such evil to persist, they still hold a power in the politics in of Avalon unparalleled by anyone else. I have seen Saints from Avalons in different universes that have braved countless perils, only to fall here as they simply couldn''t comprehend the depravity of it all. So I ask you again,"


    "Are. You. Ready,"


    Lionel stared at me like a man that simply couldn''t understand why someone was asking them the simplest question ever asked in history.


    We nodded a quick nod at each other as we strode up as men ready to die at a moment''s notice. I passed Lionel an extra gun I had picked up from one of my previous cases and told him "This six-shooter may look like any other but since it''s loaded with quantum bullets, it''ll hit like a bull. So make sure you aren''t holding this close to your face and to count your bullets since I don''t have any more," He looked at it oddly like a man that has never held a weapon before in his life but here he was, ready to kill any comers without hesitation.


    After giving it an once-over, he held it loosely in his hand and we strode up to the doors of The Dragon''s Den as men that have made their peace who were ready to die.


    Normally, I would have laughed in your face and poured my drink in my face if you told that I would ever try to fight a Cyclops but here I was, ready to face off against not one but two children of Gods. They saw that we wanted a fight and laughed in our face since what could a pair of mortal men do?


    Quite a lot was the answer. I whipped my Athame and quickly cut my left hand, that was quickly acquiring an impressive set of scars, and let the blood collect on the blade. The hemoglobin coalesced around my blade like a red whirlwind of Death and I threw it in a lazy movement that sent it flying more quickly than was possible thanks to my force magic.


    Being a child of the Gods, a normal weapon wouldn''t have even tickled them but this was a sacrificial knife doused with the blood of its master who was on a righteous crusade and it pierced the head of the first Cyclops handily. In fact, it cut right through his head and sank up to its hilt in the brick wall behind him.


    Shouting angrily at us for killing his brother, he flew into a blood rage and rushed at us swinging his twin cleavers around him but Lionel pulled up his gun and waiting until the last moment where the Cyclops was but feet away to shoot. The gun recoiled back fiercely and spewed out a cloud of white smoke as the bullet went careening out and sunk into the Cyclops like a fist. The bullet left a ruby mushroom cloud of blood as it penetrated his skin and flew out of his body before sinking cleanly into the door of The Dragon''s Den which sent out blue and yellow sparks that signified that there was more protecting the place then mere Demigods.


    My heart should have been beating erratically by now but it remained steady as a pendulum since we were not even within The Dragon''s Den yet and we knew that if they were the most that they could muster then we would be blessed men.


    Unfortunately, we knew that was too na?ve and I moved up to the door, stepping on the bodies like they weren''t even there, and plucked out my athame. The door itself was a gaudy affair, with gaping demons carved with life-like accuracy clutching screaming mortals in their claws and a devilish crown with iron thorns rested on top of the door as the centerpiece.


    I opened up my Third Eye and tried to see what was beneath the brick-and-mortar exterior. It allowed me to see past the flimsy mortal world and see down to the quantum level of quarks and neutrinos. It allowed me to gaze upon Gods in their full terrible glory. And now it allowed me to pick lock the magical wards on the door and spare us from being blown into tiny indistinct-able chunks.


    At least, that was what I intended but what actually happened is that since so many powerful witches gathered at The Dragon''s Den, they finally managed to make a proto-intelligent ward. So when it finally sensed my careful attempts to defuse it it blew up in my face.


    Luckily, I managed to disable most of the more dangerous wards but what was left still managed to send me reeling back, break at least one of my ribs, and sending debris flying everywhere to cut huge valleys across my face.


    "Well, that''s one way to make an entrance I guess," I said drunkenly on the hormones flooding my body. Shaking his head, Lionel he stepped over the blocks of building materials that managed to not get disintegrated by the explosion said to me "Didn''t that completely ruin the element of surprise that could have saved our sad, little lives if they are as strong as you say they are?"


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    Laughing wildly, I cackled out "They probably knew we were coming before we ever decided to come to The Dragon''s Den in the first place, plots within plots and games within games and all that fancy jazz,"


    Seeing that the crown somehow managed to survive, I absentmindedly took it up from the ground and placed it on my head lopsidedly.


    I yelled back at Lionel, "Get a move on you lard! They won''t wait forever!"


    "I regret doing this already," he muttered out in a fake whisper aimed at me.


    Smiling like The Mad Conjured himself, I strutted into The Dragon''s Den like I was some hot shit and announced with a loud smile "Who the fuck is in charge of this place! Never mind, just give us back Lionel here his sister or we''ll get cranky!"


    After the dust had cleared and I could clearly see the five 15-meter tall war golems arranged in a semi-circle looking at us with beady jewels-for-eyes, my smile grew crooked and my knees got shaky. "Jesus-fucking-Christ, what the Hell have I gotten myself into?" I thought to myself a bit deliriously.


    I knew that The Dragon''s Den was an organization that was wealthy from years of illicit businesses and careful investment, but By God the price for a single war golem of that size was dizzyingly astronomical. For comparison, one of those monstrosities could be as pricy as the fucking Empire State Building.


    What made it worse was that there would be more things like this for us to face before we finally manage to rescue Sandra, or maybe she was already dead.


    Lionel managed to shake me out of my reverie my marching forward with stiff arms and promptly shot at the center golem with the gun that sent loud roars of sound con cussing throughout the relatively small space.


    My ears forgot how loud the damned thing could be and were ringing long after the first golem fell. I think the only reason that Lionel stopped firing was the resounding click of the hammer falling on the empty chambers.


    I said to Lionel "I thought I said to save your bloody bullets since I don''t have anymore," to dispel my own fear.


    "Sorry. But I don''t think that unless I used all of it, the golem would die," he replied weakly while looking at me sideways.


    Considering how the golem only barely managed to fall down after five bullets that had killed the Cyclops before with only a single one, I decided that he was completely correct and decided to be more concerned with the four other golems that were finally standing up at last.


    "We should probably be paying more attention to the other golems that look kinda pissed at us for breaking and entering The Dragon''s Den," I said limply as they drew closer to us.


    "Yeah. That''ll be a...yeah that''s a umm yeah....good idea," he said haltingly as he started to develop a nervous tic in the face of the Godkillers that stalked towards us.


    Smirking at the fact that while I may be scared out of my wits, I wasn''t the only one and while I may be looking like I was confident I was just good at hiding my emotions. I wondered if my luck was at an end as I knew I couldn''t out bluff the uncaring sculptures of violence that came ever closer to us.


    I took a deep breath and tried to muster up a miraculous plan to pull our balls out of the vise it was in. I didn''t muster up one and was swatted by the rightmost golem like a fly. I had never seen a golem move so fast. They were usually huge, lumbering giants of doom. Leave it to The Dragon''s Den to make a deadly combination of power and speed.


    I hit the wall like a bug on a speeding car''s windshield.


    "Oooooh. I''m gonna feel that in the morning," I gasped out half out of my mind from pain. I fumbled into my leather coat''s jacket and found the thing I was looking for-a herbal concoction that while it may not heal my wounds at least allowed me to function with a modicum of grace.


    I tried reaching out with my Gift to separate the bonds of the rock holding them together then I was slapped across the room again. Albeit, a little less roughly since I was actually watching for it so I could at least twist my body a bit out of the way and instead of being liquified by the force, I was merely in agonizing pain.


    As I tumbled around, I saw a pill bottle roll out of one of my many pockets and realized that it was a bottle I had swiped from weeks ago when I was injured again on one of my cases. Praying to God that it wasn''t expired, I opened the bottle of regeneration pills and desperately gulped it down.


    I could feel my crushed-to-dust bones knitting themselves back together and I could finally stand on my on power. "Jason, you wonderful fuck. I fucking love you," I thought to myself.


    But my elation was short-lived as I was surrounded by the golems again and I waited to be pounded like dough again.


    But suddenly one of the golems crumbled to large, cube-like pieces of rock. Then another. Then another. And finally another. When I saw that Lionel was standing behind them gasping for breath with a screwdriver in his hand, I quirked one eyebrow at him in question at what just happened.


    With a blush creeping up his neck, he said "Before I started up my business I was an amateur geologist so I noticed that the golems were made from Galena. It made them extremely flexible and as an effect of that, fast. But also extremely brittle and will shatter when hit in the right place.


    With a mischievous grin, I said "You lovable egg-head. You saved my ass,"


    "Thanks," he said embarrassed.


    Cackling as I walked up to him, I slapped his back and said "Then if you''re finished, let''s get your sister back,"


    We walked together happily down the stairs to the main parlor of The Dragon''s Den as men that had escaped the hounds of Death by a hair''s breath. Surely nothing could be worse than what we just encountered. Right?

 Chapter 7 Between A Rock And A Hard Place

    Fun fact: It''s amazing how wrong I can be sometimes.


    When Lionel and I destroyed the golems we were laughing it up; certain that we couldn''t be stopped and that we were invincible, young lads again that just came back from a successful bar fight.


    "You know Jack, I think I''m getting the hang of Avalon now. After all, I did just kill five golems to your measly nine. That has to merit me a medal or trophy of some kind right," Lionel said boastfully.


    "Yeah, you''re Hercules born again," I said mock reverently as I shook my head.


    "Oh, woe are the great for they are plagued by jealous lesser men," Lionel said to me just as sarcastically as I was to him.


    I snorted and said "Says the guy that probably has to stand on a stool to reach the top shelf in his kitchen. I hope you know that I could throw your ass into next week,"


    "Oh, really? Me, golem-killer extraordinaire?" He said in a faux-British accent designed to make fun of the countless strutting bravos that pounded the streets like they were Mike Tyson after their first win against an imp.


    Shaking my head with a scoundrel-esque smile that made me look like a young strapping adventurer that I was in my more na?ve days, I said "Then you won''t be scared of the even more disturbing things that await us below?"


    "Oh, hush. I''m not the least bit frightened!" Lionel said in a loud voice.


    "Then let''s go rescue your sister!" I said in a voice that was more genuinely cheery than any time in the past twenty years and walked down with Lionel on my right-hand side.


    We were not prepared. We walked down the rickety stairs, pushed open the scarlet curtains, and saw a visage of power; Johnny Hellboy-the boy born in Hell after an unlucky rift opened up and swallowed his family home, The Circe Coven-a group of witches more advanced in hexes than any other, a groupie of hired thugs armed with golden long-staffs, and facing them with her back to us was Sister Josephine.


    She stood alone in the old, musty room with her straight razor drawn out and standing in the center of a mess of destruction: an overturned desk that had papers, ink wells, and red handkerchiefs strewn around it, a tattered drape that had managed to get stuck in the ceiling with its ragged black cloth dangling sadly, a series of deep gouges in the wall that looked like a beast had clawed it, and puddles of blood everywhere.


    We walked into a most precarious situation; I expected all the Major Players to have had bugged out before we arrived and that all that would greet us would be a small gathering of frightened wannabes, not a collection of individuals that were very powerful, very dangerous, and most definitely psychotic.


    I heard Lionel gulp and with that their tense standoff was broken as they all turned to look at us. Whether it was that they didn''t somehow hear our fight against the golems upstairs or that they were shocked that we didn''t run away yet, they didn''t attack us yet but I knew that wouldn''t last.


    So I chose to open my big, fat mouth and do what I do best: get us in more trouble by antagonizing all the wrong people in the worst kind of ways.


    "Sister Josephine! It is I, Jack Millory! I will aid you in your battle against the sinister forces arrayed before you if you would only help us with our own quest!" I somehow managed to say that without stuttering on my fear or choking on my embarrassment at my overly old-fashioned prose.


    "I will accept your terms, Jack, if you tell me what exactly is your quest that you speak of!" She said back to me in that theatrical way with no hint pretense of humor at her words. All the while, she was dancing through the men that seemed far too clumsy as they rushed at her; a flick of her blade and a man clutching his suddenly red throat, a man yelping out in pain as the tendons in his leg were cut and he fell to his feet, a man raising his staff high above him and slamming it down like a falling tree suddenly gurgling as he coughed up blood after he looked down to see his lungs were punctured.


    "It is a cause most Right and Just! I have come here not for my own cause but at the request of my good friend Ser Lionel Jospehs to rescue his beloved sister who is trapped here against her own will!" I shouted back hoping she didn''t decide to fight us as well and that she didn''t hear the timber of fear in my voice . I did not want to be another notch in her belt of kills.


    "If it is for family then I will gladly assist!" She said magnanimously with a flourish. And with another flick of her razor that sent another dead body with blood gushing out like a geyser falling to the rug already stained with the blood of countless fools. I couldn''t keep my eyes off the unmoving bodies that seemed like they were merely sleeping around her.


    Dropping my voice, I said to Lionel "Jospehine always had a few screws loose, but when she went religion she got even more crazy. So as of now you are a Christian Knight on a Quest to save your sister and make sure you don''t slip or she might decide that your sister is not worthy of rescue. She only believes her own version of Good and Evil which makes her both unpredictable and easy to manipulate,"


    "So basically, -don''t be stupid," He replied in a mouse''s voice. He was shaking like a leaf.


    "Yeah. And make sure to follow my cues," I replied with the gravest sincerity.


    And with that, I moved one foot forward and shouted with great emotion and desperation "By the Powers That Hold, I Adjure you and Sentence you to the Punishment of Unbinding!" A great rush of invisible power rushed out from me as the epicenter and targeted my enemies in front of me. The blast was like a pebble sending out waves throughout the pond-it ripped through everything in its path and broke the bonds that held their atoms together.


    Stone blocks that had stood here for centuries and seen plenty of dead fools spontaneously burst into gray dust, a bookshelf that lied between me and them crumbled into a pile of dry chips, a frightened man melting into his component parts of hydrogen, oxygen, water, and etc., but with a single word by the Coven the burst was dispelled and the threat gone.


    I was still staring at how my blast was dispelled so easily, Johnny Hellboy stepped forward and spread his chaotic black wings that were eight feet wide with red veins pulsing through them like wryms of death that had black thorns adorning them at the ends. His eyes turned from a simple homely, brown to an obsidian black that had burning red slits for pupils.  Suddenly, as if Satan sent a sign claiming that Johnny was his son, a circlet made entirely out of flame appeared upon his head that had screaming faces trapped in agony in the place of jewels and a giant spinning wheel of fire complete with a black and red eye in the center. His skin turned scaly and ashen which made them as hard as Hellion steel.  He grew a tri-pronged forked tail that lash out uncontrollably that left deep marks in the stone that it smacked against.


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    My eyes grew wide as he lunged at me with incredible speed like the Devil himself coming up from the pit and his clawed hands sunk deep into my shoulders. They burned like freshly poured iron as his claws dug deeper and twisted. His huge leering face came close to mine to show me his horrible yellow teeth the size of a great whites'' and bit into my right shoulder. My vision grew hazy white with pain as I gasped in wordless pain.


    Suddenly, instead of growing mad with terror or falling into tears from the pain, I grew impossibly, wildly, inexplicably mad. I roared a roar that managed to give pause to even Johnny and I reached up to grab his face, ignoring the soaring pain in my shoulder, and gave a primitive push of force to his head. His ears bloomed ruby as his ear drums collapsed and tissues imploded from the sudden force. I stood there, towering over him like an overlord judging the failure of his subordinate, and a voice that was not mine came up from inside me that boomed out "Johnny," I paused for a brief second before continuing with "Die," like it was not a question or even a pronouncement but as if it was a command that spoke to his very soul black with oily tar and that would not be denied.


    I stomped over to him and pulled out my gun, I infused it with my wrath, and pulled the trigger. It sounds all too simple but it was so much more than that, it was a manifestation of my mindless rage born from the years of stalking around the Greats like a mutt, the times when loved ones died at the end and when all I could do was turn my head to pretend that it never happened, that I never knew the.


    The bullet erupted out with a deep, bass growl and instead of the casual, wimpy gray smoke, it was a fog of airy magma. It didn''t kill him outright nor would it be permanent since he would regenerate near instantaneously but By God did it hurt him! He looked down dumbly at the dull, throb of pain that stemmed from the hole large enough to put my fist in and tried to stand up to finish me and said "You don''t know what you''re messing with, you damn bitch! I will-"


    I didn''t let him finish as I leaped on top of him and pinned him down with both of my legs. I deftly took out my blade in an aggressive manner that also spilled out countless bric-a-brac. I raised, at least I thought I lifted it up but it felt like I was being forced to, my left arm high above me like it was the hand of a hanged man reaching for the stars one last time and slit my left wrist once amore in a fashion that started from my shoulder down to my palm. I put all my strength in my cut like I was stabbing Johnny and not myself. The odd thing was, I didn''t even feel the pain over the animalistic rage. I stared at him all the while as a river of blood tumbled out and instead of falling to the floor, the dark red globules hung suspended in the air in defiance of gravity that seemed to scream "Fuck you Isaac Newton! I don''t have time for your shit!"  All was quiet as the world seemed to stare at me and wonder what would happen next. The red droplets all moved suddenly and collected around my blade in angry, little milliseconds. They started to spin wildly like they were in a centrifuge around my blade.


    I grew scared at what was happening since I had no control over this and for this had never happened before in all of my rituals. They buzzed louder and louder like a mad swarm of wasps that would began targeting myself if I pussyfooted around any longer. Embracing my darkness. I stabbed downward with both hands, even though my left wasn''t supporting it all and was actually just hanging onto my blade sadly. My face was a contortion of emotions that I didn''t know existed and if I could see myself right now or if there was a nearby mirror I would have seen an image that would trouble even Gods, a feat I didn''t know I could perform. My athame screamed like a banshee heralding Johnny''s impending doom as it descended upon him.


    I aimed for the slowly closing wound from my earlier gunshot and it connected deeply. Johnny screamed out in pain but the blade was not finished with him yet. I smiled in sadistic joy as I saw him squirm beneath me like a pinned cockroach, "You could feel like this forever if you would just simply take my power that I offered to you, my darling boy," a voice as warm as a fireplace on a winter night and as comforting as the embrace of an angel, it made me want to throw up.


    It was the voice of a monster trying to be gentle. An unnatural voice.


    I knew what was going to happen next and I feverishly tried to pull out my blade out but it did not want to be denied its sacrifice. My arms that were never very strong was weakened by my own sacrifice and could do nothing to affect what came next. The blood exploded from the blade like a bomb and carved deep tracts in his torso. It mangled his body like a starving ghoul and his ribcage sprouted forth like a bone-white lily. Dark blood splashed onto my face and the Infernal blood ate away at my cheeks like a parasite but I didn''t pull away because I knew that since I came this far I might as well see it to its end.


    The ritual was not finished yet as a black vortex appeared beneath him and scarred, white tentacles leapt out and strapped him down. Johnny started screaming again as he was pulled slowly into it, he struggled harder than I would have thought possible for a man with his wounds but struggle he did.


    He begged me to save him, to spare him but if even I did not know what was happening how could I save him. As he saw I was still motionless, he began gibbering unintelligibly as his mind slipped away from him. He began raging at me and kicking at me, which rain down upon me like giant rain drops and like rain drops; meant nothing. He tried cajoling me with pledges of power and words of wealth but I couldn''t accept even if I wanted to as I was mesmerized by the tornadoes of nothingness beneath Johnny. He weeped large, yellow tears as he felt himself falling deeper and I saw that he was halfway in the vortex already. Suddenly, he stopped fighting and relaxed. He smile the smile of a condemned man that has accepted his fate and said to me "Well played, Jack. Well played,"


    He closed his eyes one last time and was sacrificed to the power I didn''t how I summoned onto this world. Did I just cause the beginning of the end?

 Chapter 8 Knight Errant

    I looked up from the gray, stone floor that gave no hint that a half-demon just got swallowed by a dark void that lead to God-knows-where except just a few red chips of blood on my clothes and face. After struggling to figure out just what the Hell just happened in front of me, whether it was the blood-loss getting to my head or the assload of weird crap that happened today, but I just couldn''t understand. Giving up trying to figure out whatever was going on, I just looked around blankly like a lost lamb at the place around me.


    What I saw was intriguing at least; the room around me was looking like an invading army marched through it, with sections of stone walls warped into spirals by the titanic forces of power being unleashed here, a giant scorpion with soft flames tracing its body stood poised to leap on my back but seemed just as shocked as everyone here so it didn''t try to make a move, a section of the ceiling had caved in forming an impromptu barricade between Joesphine and the five remaining witches that stood solid like oak trees that did not even glance down at their eight dead sisters, Lionel had bandaged his right arm from his now ruined shirt that had scorch marks and holes torn in it, and everything just looked as expected of a great battle between powerful women.


    But what shocked me the most was how they looked at me: Sister Josephine looked like I was a dopey little puppy that had suddenly turned into a Hellhound and was prepared to kill me if I was truly the monster that I looked like, the Coven had wide green eyes, shaking hands that came up to call up green orbs of energy to bear against, frankly they looked like I was a dead man that crawled out of The Pit.


    I expected Lionel to be more scared of me-possibly to the point of tears-but he immediately rushed over to me. He kneeled and grabbed me by the shoulders.


    "Jack! Jack! Are you okay, Jack!" He asked frantically like I was the one that got sucked into the black hole of doom.


    "No. But if you keep shaking me like that, then my cuts will probably open up again. Just saying," I said with as much humor I could muster in this bewildering situation. I couldn''t believe he wasn''t scared considering he was a normal, working stiff, whose only experience with the Weird were probably a few Twilight Zone episodes that were being rerun. Amazing, the tenacity of human beings; I couldn''t believe that he was fussing over me like I was just a friend that got into a bar fight who managed to stumble home in a mess of blood.


    "While I appreciate the thought, anything that can be fixed with a few makeshift bandages won''t kill me. Also, the beating I just got will either kill me in the next few minutes or not at all. So just leave me be, Lionel," I said with a smile.


    "Well. Umm. Okay,"


    It was clear to me that he still thought that I was about to keel over like the Titanic at any moment, which was a very real possibility. We smile relieved at each other, we both chose not to talk about each other''s obvious lies. He extended his one good hand out to me to help lift me up, which I gladly accepted. I was about to speak when I was interrupted by Sister Josephine.


    "Jack, are you some breed of dark cultist that has managed to escape my eyes up until now? And if you even think of lying to me, then I will separate head from shoulder," She said gravely to me in a deeply serious voice.


    "What?! How am I some sort of cultist! I mean, I do wear a robe and I did do that little spooky thing before but that wasn''t my fault! I had no control over that!" I managed to squawk out my sentences like a dying chicken. I swear to God, if I get killed after that intense, little fight then I will be seriously miffed.


    "Then what was that dark ritual? With the self-harm, the floating blood, the dark abyss, and the demonic voice? Was that a mere daydream?" She asked me like the Inquisitor she is, with no shame or backing down.


    "I. Don''t. Know. I am just as scared and confused as you are. If you could help to find out what the Hell just happened I would be glad beyond belief. But I don''t know anything about what just happened, each time I had empowered my blade with my life force before it merely made the blade sharper, more powerful. This has never happened before," I said this in a tone that was half pleading and half hoping she would take mercy on me.


    Sister Josephine''s eyes were a stormy gray like the ocean raging against a rocky cliff with storm clouds approaching from beyond the horizon. She had never let a bad man leave her sight alive-I once saw her jump in front of a speeding car, rip open the roof, throw a holy handgrenade inside, leap off back into the caf¨¦ she was having coffee in, and all because she saw a drug lord that she recognized-but at the same time she never let an innocent man die needlessly.


    All I could do was wait for her to decide if I was an abomination in a man''s skin that crawled from the farthest corners of Hell or just a man that lost his way fighting forces far beyond his ability.


    Did I even know which one I was? A man burdened by his sins or a weary holy warrior? An insidious imp or warrior angel? A bad man or good? I hope that I will know one day, I hope so badly.


    Josephine looked deep inside my soul at things I did not know, at the tragedies I had born, and the people I had failed. She saw the friends I had let die because I was scared and weak. She saw the battles I had fled from in cowardice. She saw the monsters I fought become the monster I was.


    I hoped she saw the good I did, I hoped what comparatively little good I did was enough to convince her to let me stay on God''s Creation. Did the bad people that I killed make Avalon a better place? Did the killers I spared even when they tried to kill me make me better or worse? I remember having cases where I had reunited families, but was it enough to atone for my sins?


    For seconds that stretched of eternity, she was wordless; quietly judging the weight of my life. After seeing past the mask I presented to the world at large and decided that perhaps I could be killed at a later date.


    She lowered her sanctified straight razor and said to me in a voice that dropped the accent she usually had "You had a bad hand dealt to you, Jack. A real bad one. You did a lot of bad things, but also some good ones," She paused for effect before continuing with "The scales are balanced too closely for me to kill you out-of-hand but you are just one bad choice away from losing it all. Tread carefully, Jack. Real carefully,"


    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    I knew she was not just being a worried priest but a Crusader telling that based on what she had seen, I was on the highway to Hell. I nodded grimly at her in acknowledgment of her words and looked back at the witches that were still huddled together uncertainly; some looked back in worry, some in hatred, while still some closed their eyes to await whatever judgement we issued upon them.


    Before Josephine had a chance to pass sentence and kill them, I stepped forward to say "You are broken. Shattered. Ruined. But I don''t enjoy killing beyond what is necessary, so if you were to run to some remote part of Earth and away from the corruption of Avalon I won''t follow you. You are just people ruined by the ethics of Avalon, so I don''t believe you deserve death right now. But mark my words, if you decide to come back then I will kill you,"


    Shocked that they weren''t going to die, they couldn''t move for a movement but then they hurriedly ran past us up the stairs with sideways glances at us as they passed.


    "I didn''t think that you were one to spare witches, Jack. I don''t think that letting them run rampant on a still adjusting world was the best idea. Nor do I think that letting them go would go with my very strong principles," She stared in my eye as she said this.


    I closed my eyes and leaned back against a wall as I considered what to say. I wasn''t scared of dying right now, for some reason I found a well of peace and solidarity inside of me. I felt the rough stone rubbing against my hair and the silence around me. I found what I wanted to say and said "Sometimes, you have to reexamine your common sense every now and then. Sometimes, you have see if what you believe in still makes sense when you look at the world around you. You would be amazed at what you find,"


    I felt her eyes examine me like I was a dog that started quoting Hamlet, and then I felt her pause in my still bleeding left arm. She spoke to me "I don''t think even you understand you. I don''t think anyone does,"


    I cracked one eye open to look at her balefully, and said sadly "I stopped understanding myself a long time ago. I have been on auto-pilot for the last two decades, just trying to live until I can understand my own heart again. I still cry sometimes at night as I thought of what I could have been if I had picked to walk the right-hand path. I still have broken dreams and I still dream of Alyssa, my would-be wife,"


    I was surprised by what I said, I paused in thought again. I wondered "Is this how I really feel? Why now? Why in front of people I barely know?"


    I was struggling with my thoughts as I tried to figure out what made me say those things that I have never even admitted to myself during my darkest hours, my thoughts that I had buried behind a cold demeanor, to tell them of old memories of youth gone by.


    I stood there awkwardly in a torn up room with only two other people in it. I coughed with great awkwardness and said "We should probably go and try to see if your sister is around here somewhere,"


    I started moving towards an overturn bookcase as if Sandra, a full grown woman, would somehow be just hiding behind it. Nonetheless, I continued looking behind objects to small to hide even a child and making it really obvious that I wanted what just happened to be ignored.


    Stupidly, Lionel and Sister Josephine both joined in awkwardness to help me check if Lionel''s sister was beneath the rug. We continued like this for a time longer than was reasonable before Sister Josephine suggested with a fake cough "Perhaps there is a secret chamber in this room somewhere? Hidden by magic and powers our eyes cannot see through?"


    "Ah. Yes. Umm. Maybe. I''ll check," I said with a blush that came inexplicably that threatened to set my whole face ablaze with the warmth I felt. We forged past the trepidation in our hearts; in my case embarrassment at the secrets I had guarded for so long that I spilled so easily, in Sister Josephine''s case it was worry at what my soul''s ultimate destination was, and in Lionel''s it was a mix of excitement and anxiety at how close we were to his sister.


    I put the words I had said firmly in the back of mind and opened my Third Eye. I gazed across the room in search of a hidden door, I finally found it square next to the staircase we had entered. I motioned for them to follow me as I pick locked the considerably less complex ward on it which made sense since the more magic you pack into a space, the more obvious it would be to those sensitive to it.


    It opened up silently to a pocket dimension with wide green pastures and trees which was incongruous to the personalities of the building''s owners. Ignoring this inconsistency, we forged onward into it after checking if there were anymore traps left.


    We walked for only a few minutes before we chanced upon a small glass capsule that had beautiful engravings on it; images of dancing sprites, portraits of flowers, etc.


    Inside it was someone that couldn''t have been anyone else but Sandra, Lionel''s sister, a fact accentuated by how Lionel broke out into a full-out sprint towards her shouting "Sandra! Sandra! We found you!"


    Holding him back from the capsule in case there was a trap set near it, I double-checked it for any curses but found none. I creeped up to the vessel and tapped it carefully, only to hear a deeper than expected chime come from it. Seeing that no summoned creatures had popped out of nowhere to kill us in a variety of gruesome manners, I shrugged my shoulders and concentrated my power into my hands to make the glass implode.


    Shrieking like a dying goat, Lionel was shocked by the possibility that his sister might have been harmed and rushed over to her side. Apparently, the only thing keeping her asleep was the vessel and after I broke it she woke up confused by her surroundings but otherwise fine.


    I left the siblings to a teary reunion but I still wondered; why did The Dragon''s Den have Sandra in the first place and why was she in "imminent" danger if she seemed perfectly fine so far?


    ----------------------------------I would really  appreciate it if you guys could share this with your friends, spam this on some other frictions, and give me some reviews. If you did that would really motivate me a lot. Thanks!---------------------

 A Side Note

    This story won''t be a fast one, this isn''t some story that''ll be wrapped up cleanly in a few dozen chapters. No, this is a story with 40+ chapters at the smallest. And that''s just the first volume! There will still be loose ends that will persist throughout the second volume and so forth until the conclusion of this little series I''m writing! A thing I''ve noticed about the top fictions on Royal Road is that they all have mature content. While I''m not saying that this is bad since that''s there story but I most likely won''t be doing that to my story. If you guys have any complaints or congratulations please post them on my fiction page so I can get some constructive feedback.


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


    I sincerely hope that this will eventually break into the top 50 one day, but until then I''ll be chugging along with this story no matter if by the time it becomes popular it''ll already be on the third volume or whatnot. So come aboard for the ride since it''ll be a long one!


    By the way, I have not yet decided on the name for my first volume so if you want to pick one, feel free and tell me them.

 Chapter 9 Look Beyond The Familiar

    I paused to look around me again to see if my breaking of the glass chamber had invited any newcomers to our location; all I saw was range of gently rolling green hills covered in emerald grass that dance softly in the calming breeze which would not be out of place in a remote Irish countryside, there were also beautiful copses of  short trees offering shelter and shade to any possible weary travelers that might chance upon this little slice of Eden, far off I saw a meandering skinny river traversing through the pocket dimension like a sinuous serpent, nearby there was a babbling brook cascading over polished flat rocks, and an azure sky left free of the taint of the modern world that gave us our power but left beauty out to rot on the curb.


    It made me wistful of what life would''ve been like if I chose to pick up the pen instead of the sword, to choose peace over glory, to vault love over power, it made me wonder what life could''ve been if I stayed with sweet, lovely, caring Alyssa.


    I shook my head in anger at myself, I refuse to be dragged back into that topic and to be remember what she was like again. All that laid there was sleep broken by midnight tears and memories that were a bittersweet poison of a bedtime fairytale.


    I felt tired beyond belief, I knew what caused it so I decided to let my melancholic thoughts quiet and turned to look at the lady of the hour; Sandra, the woman that I had done so much to rescue. She was still confused as to where she was and why she was being hugged by her brother who was in tears. She did not know why there was a woman standing in an odd mix of leather and white cloth with a bright red cross messing with a frighteningly sharp razor.


    She was younger than I expected considering how Lionel must have been in his late 30s but she looked like a fresh-faced college graduate who was venturing into the real world for the first time. She had stunningly violet eyes to Lionel''s brown, gently flowing locks of doe-like hair, she was a woman of average height, and she was skinny but in a lithe way that could be found in a leopard.


    I stopped staring at her since it was getting weird and she was looking back at me oddly. I wondered wistfully if anyone would go to such lengths to find me or if anyone would even spare a second thought at my disappearance. Probably not, I concluded as I shook my head in self-depreciation at my shallow existence.


    I walked back over to the capsule we found Sandra in and examined it more thoroughly. Oddly enough there was a stone tablet that I had some how missed on my first look-through sitting on the side of the vessel. I looked at it more intently and carved into it were plump, fairy children with disgusting smiles laughing at a group of men and women pierced on a spear trap they had set. Just goes to show you that no matter how much we look alike, the F? are a race that live at the extremes, their beauty enchanting or gruesome, their kindness heavenly or horrible, and they are what Mankind would have been if we hadn''t chose to walk the middle path.


    There was also a set of runes and glyphs lovingly inscribed onto it and while my Elvish may be rusty due to an intentional distancing of myself from the F?rie Courts, it was still enough to make out what it said:


    The Queen is Ascendant and her Power Returned


    Cry out in fearful Joy as her Awful Glory is shown


    Your Red Blood will Burn Blue


    As the Monsters on your shoulder


    Scream for the World to Fall


    The Mountain will Break


    And the Cross will Bleed again


    "Bloody ruin! What does that mean?!" I yelled out as I nearly choked on my words in surprise. I couldn''t figure out what that meant or even if I translated it correctly but I figured that since the F?rie were a race whose stratagems could confuse even themselves, I would be a fool to even consider to that I could unravel their mystic plots.


    Hell, I don''t even know if it was an actual prophecy or just a mischievous Elf trying to screw with people one last time.


    "Jack! What''s wrong!" Lionel asked worriedly as he quickly rushed over next to me and scanned for possible enemies around us. "Are we under attack!" He asked me as he put his back to mine and pulled out his still-empty gun that I have him earlier.


    "Well, no. But umm. I just found something interesting," I said both touched by how he immediately trusted me with his back and amused by how fast he assumed we were we going to be attacked.


    "Like what?" Lionel asked as he continued to look around him with an eagle-eyed glare.


    I sighed and forcefully pulled his shoulder towards me so I could talk to him without being distracted by how often he moved. "Lionel. While I appreciate your caution, even Avalon has limits on how weird and spiteful and odd it can be in the span of a single day. So, while I understand why you would be wary of what would happen, please calm down and listen to me," I said exasperated like a parent whose child was running all around the candy shop.


    "Sorry about that, I was just kinda expecting us to be ambushed by now. You know, considering how often we got into life-or-death fights so far today," Lionel said sheepishly with a blush at how silly he was being right now.


    "Don''t worry, I understand why you would be worried that we might get ambushed by a pack of rabid shrubs or something equally absurd. A lot of the newcomers that come into Avalon who survive become extremely paranoid the first few hours," I said reassuringly.


    "I can guess why," Lionel said as he reluctantly stopped being so worried about possible imminent death.


    "Indeed you can, indeed you can," I said lightheartedly at his response.


    "Well, anyways. I was curious about what this said over here," I said as I was interrupted by Sandra, Lionel''s sister.


    "There''s nothing there but a bunch of scribbles," She said like I was like the madman that I looked like.


    "Technically, yes but I happen to be able to read Elvish, only very roughly mind you, but I can''t even understand a single word of the Elvish tongue what with their high pitch clicks and such," I said academically in response.


    Sandra stared at me even more incredulously and spoke in the gentle tone one uses to speak to the mentally ill and insane "Ah. Elves. Yes. That makes perfect sense. How about you go look for them over there while me and Lionel go look for them over there," Sandra said to get me as far from them as possible. Which was reasonable considering she just woke up and didn''t know what the Hell was going on, but that worried stare she was giving me was very embarrassing.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    Lionel stepped in with a cough and saved me from embarrassing myself any further by saying "How about we tell Sandra what has been going on the past few hours and where we are before we continue,"


    Saying my thanks, we filled her in on what happened from the Angel meat to the supernatural monsters to the blood sacrifices to the pocket dimension we were in. Her expression shifted from revulsion to shock to disbelief and finally to a complete lack of emotion as her brain simply gave up on trying to make sense of what we were saying.


    "...yes...umm...yeah...that makes sense," She said in a quiet tone and with fear in her eyes as they flitted between us. I didn''t know why she was so scared or confused, I mean Avalon has been common knowledge for some time now.


    "Why is this so hard to take in? Haven''t you heard of Avalon?" I said in sincere confusion.


    "Yeah but I always assumed that it was only stuff like throwing around a few fireballs or levitating stuff and not stuff that sounds like it belongs in the plot of a bad horror movie!" She said as her voice raised in anger at what was going on. "I am a woman of science and reason, not a kid playing wizards!" If she didn''t calm down soon, I''m certain that she''ll start getting violent.


    Deciding that actions speak louder than words, I walked a few meters away from them and asked Sister Josephine who was standing quietly beside herself this entire time, "Do you mind helping me with something? I think that showing her Avalon magic would make this whole thing go a lot faster," She merely nodded in agreement and stepped up next to me.


    "So how about you do your Judgement of God thing and I''ll do my earthquake stuff," I asked her cordially. Surprisingly, she grew a maniacal grin and said "It''s been ages since I''ve done that, I''ll love the chance to show off,"


    More than a little worried, I prepared myself for the Great Power I would enact by calming my mind until it was like a tranquil pond. I planted my legs slightly spread out and took out my athame with my Gift. It stayed steady in front of me as I lifted my arms up as if in supplication to the Gods and I said in a voice that projected quite well "By your Grace and Mercy, I implore you to give this weak servant of yours a touch of your Divine Fire!"


    With this, my blade moved suddenly and stabbed me in the chest up to its hilt, sending a geyser of blood spurting out everywhere and painting the grass red. Bloody ruin, did I hate that part of the ritual!


    I heard Sandra shriek in shock and shout "He''s fucking insane! Holy shit! Lionel! Help him!"


    "I''m pretty sure that was suppose to happen Sandra...maybe," I heard Lionel say unconvincingly to her.


    As they were arguing back and forth, I felt Selene whisper to me through the wind that came out of nowhere "It''s been so long since we''ve done this, I was beginning to think that you didn''t love me anymore, Jack,"


    By the Gods, was that disturbing but I''ll be damned if I was fool enough to think that out loud. I felt her fingers through the wind playing with my graying brown hair. "Just hurry up and do your part of the ritual. I''m beginning to feel faint," I thought to her in a way that was somehow both respectful and urging.


    "Oh, you''re always so stuck up," Selene said as she temporarily gave me a taste of her power. It was an intoxicatingly giddy rush of power that I felt pass through which surpassed any of the myriad of drugs I had taken in my foolish youth. It was freedom incarnate and wildness given free reign. It was the power of a Goddess of The Hunt.  I felt like I could shoot out the sun and bring an endless night to all the world.


    "Jack, are you okay?" I heard Selene whisper in my ear in worry as she got wind of my thoughts.


    I realized what happened: it has been so long since I''ve tasted her true nature that I''ve forgotten how addicting it could be. Wresting control of myself, I channeled the power into my blade inefficiently-if I didn''t then I would shudder to think of the destruction a God''s power channeled through Mortal Freewill could enact-and felt the blade thrum so violently that any other blade would''ve already shattered and sent a million tiny shards flying into my body.


    But since it didn''t, it meant the ritual went fine and now there was an invisible vortex of force whirling around the blade. I pulled the blade out of my body with a grunt and stabbed outward at the air. What happened next shocked Lionel and Sandra at the in-proportionate amount of carnage that was wreaked; the force that was let out by the blade dug great, deep furrows in the earth for hundreds of meters, there were sonic booms  generated by the rapid expulsion of air around us, and a temporary vortex was created by the rapid change in atmospheric pressure.


    The look on their faces was almost enough for the fact that there was a gaping hole in my chest. Sandra''s mouth was wide-open and Lionel looked like he just experienced the Rapture. If they were impressed by this, I couldn''t wait for what they thought of Josephine''s. Fortunately, the wound was closing slowly after the residual power in me allowed me to regenerate.


    Josephine went down to her knees and pulled out a set of rosary beads. She started praying reverently to her God and soon a increasingly bright aura of light enveloped her whole body until she was like an inferno. Out of nowhere, she stood up ramrod stiff with a blue glow behind her eyes she shouted "Sanctus Dominus!" She whipped out her razor and cut a cross in the air in front of her so swiftly that the air caught fire, which burned longer than naturally possible. Josephine was no longer Josephine, she was an instrument of God now. She flew up with golden wings into the air as the cross became more malleable and wrapped itself around her razor.


    "By Your Will, it is done!" She slashed downward once and a great, white flame scorched the land. The earth turned into black, barren rock that began to melt and become scorching lava. Slowly, she descended back down with he wings gradually dissipating and the glow fading. I made sure that she was fine after the Holy Spirit possessed her and said to Sandra cheekily, "So! Believe in what happened today and how squirrelly Avalon is now?"

 Chapter 10 Power Speaks

    Sandra was just as speechless as her brother, they looked like fish out of water. It was another few minutes yet before they could format any words "But...but...how?" Lionel finally managed to say weakly in response to the awesome display of powerful he just witnessed.


    "How what?" I said trying to get a clearer idea of just what befuddled them so and left them so shocked.


    "Everything! What you just did was in clear violation of the natural laws of the world!" Sandra answered in place of her brother as she finally parsed through the casual defiance of her worldview. "How in the world did you manage to do that!" She said in an accusing manner at me and Josephine as we looked at each other not in suspicion but in roguish camaraderie for once.


    "Well, what you''re asking for is an answer that would require degrees in fields that no here had ever even heard of but if you want an answer that will inevitably be filled with errors somewhere, then buckle up!"


    After seeing that I had secured their attention with my theatrics, I paused for affect before continuing with "Allow me to start off with saying that we all know that while gods have enormous power, they can only utilize that power in specific circumstances in their respective field of governance. Like how while Zeus wields great power, you don''t exactly see him killing off nonbelievers everyday since the more power a god has the more restricted he is. That''s why even though Zeus is more than strong enough to win wars on his own, he still requires mortal champions since he can''t really use his power on his own. In fact in the case of God, some theologians believe that he has grown so powerful that he can''t even exist in our universe for fear of creating a giant black hole that''ll engulf everything!" I said that last part with macabre cheer.


    Ignoring their shock, I continued and said "So a common way for gods to utilize their powers is through mortal champions, Demigods, and by having zealots summon them through. The last part isn''t really a good idea since the journey from the Divine Dimension to the Mundane wreaks havoc on their sanity and we usually end up with a very powerful, very insane entity running around," This is why we really don''t have a problem with cults since the citizens usually kill them on sight before they could do anything.


    I checked to see if they lost track yet but after seeing they could still follow what I said, I continue speaking "The Demigods are a lot stronger than mortal champions but the only reason they can even exist in our world is by running on a sliver of their god''s strength and so they have a quick expiration date. This is why mortal champions are almost exclusively used by gods to influence the world; cheap, generally sane, and able to call upon their god''s power every so often,"


    "So what you two just did was channel your respective gods'' power?" Lionel asked uncertainly.


    "That''s the gist of it," I said in agreement and I was pleased that Lionel managed to follow all of that metaphysical confusion.


    "But you said every so often, does that mean that there''s a cool down on how long you can use it?" Sandra asked in concern that I may have wasted the one thing that could have gotten us out of a tight situation.


    "Yes to that as well but for most people it takes time to process and use the power, so me and Josephine hardly ever call upon our deities unless we''re really screwed and that''s the only thing left to try. In my opinion, if things ever got that bad then I''m pretty certain that I wouldn''t have time to use it before whatever monstrosity kills me," Josephine explained with dark humor.


    I added on with "The only people that could use their abilities on a moment''s notice are innately talented people and they tend to get killed off by rival gods so centuries can go by before one managed to pick a god to side with. That''s why some champions can''t even use their god''s power since the less talented you are, the longer you live,"


    "So you two are pretty rare, huh," Sandra said in admiration. Whether for the fact that we managed to live or that we could summon down destruction of Biblical proportions, I didn''t know.


    "Like a two-headed snake," Josephine answered while absentmindedly playing with her razor by flipping the blade around.


    After I explained all of this I gave them time to fully process all of this. After some time an awkward silence grew between us, so I filled in the gap with a cough and said "Well, now that I''ve brought you to your sister, I expect to be paid,"


    "Of course!" Lionel said happily as I reminded him about why I agreed to rescue his sister in the first place.


    "Just drop off the money at The Nosferatu Hospital and tell Jason to hold onto it until I can come back to get the money. And now if don''t mind, I need to ask you for a favor."


    With a wide, genuine smile Lionel said to me "I would be honored,"


    Bluntly and cutting straight to it, I said "I need to get to Earth. Do you mind if I join you as you two return?"


    Chuckling, Lionel said "I was about to ask you to escort us back home anyways. While I haven''t been here for long, I know better than to assume that our return trip will be peaceful,"


    "Good to see that Avalon at least taught you to have a respectful fear of things," I said as we smiled at each other as we remembered how we bonded over our mishaps.


    "Indeed it has, indeed it has," Lionel said in happy agreement as he recalled all the things that had occurred in a few short hours.


    "I don''t mean to interrupt you two''s bromance but I think if Avalon is as dangerous as you two say it is, then I think he should get going," Sandra interrupted us with an acidic voice as she grew tired of our conversation.


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    I was about to say something but I once was again interrupted by someone else, this time it was Josephine. "While I''m glad to see you are all getting along, I need to get back to the Church and report what has happened here today," She said that dryly and sauntered away. I knew that she was going to tell them about the void. I just hoped I wouldn''t get too screwed.


    I said crisply "So where are we going, Lionel?"


    "Well, how I got here was that hired a wizard to gate me into Avalon and he told me that when I was ready to return, that I should just go back to the spot that I came through,"


    I sighed and said "And where is that precisely?"


    "It''s in Percival district. Next to The Obsidian Tower," He explained to me.


    Fun fact about The Obsidian Tower, one day it just appeared out of nowhere and nobody could even figure out what the black material it was made of was. It could''ve been anything from intergalactic debris to an alien hive waiting to catch us off-guard and to turn us all to mindless drones. Well, if it was the latter then it''ll be waiting for eons.


    We walked quickly and with purpose to the gate that we entered through. We expected to be greeted by a battalion of angry mages but the only thing in the wrecked room was the bodies that were to starting to turn into unpleasant colors. I wonder how long it''ll be before Club Rain will hunt me down and kill me. I shrugged my shoulders since if they did, it''ll hardly make a difference since from day one I have always had people looking to make a dollar off of my name; it was becoming more of a nuisance, like a mosquito that kept buzzing around, then an actual threat.


    Sandra almost vomited as she saw the bodies but managed to hold it in as we walked up the stairs. Me and Lionel shared a smile as we saw the very expensive golems that we reduced into so much rubble. We walked out of there with heads held high until we saw the mob of angry mages waiting for us outside.


    "Duck!" I shouted frantically as I pulled Lionel and Sandra down to the pavement. Bursts of arcane energy raced above us and reduced the concrete behind us into dust. I heard a loud groaning moan behind us and I quickly stood back up. I pulled Lionel and Sandra out of the way of the collapsing building behind us. And not a moment too soon as the rubble rushed forward as a wave and buried where we would''ve been with tons of steel and stone.


    But that wasn''t the end, the enchantments woven into the building recognized the magical assault and let loose its own barrage; green arrows, blue flames, and yellow lightning bolts raced out everywhere like a bomb. One of the lighting bolts clipped my back as I ran and bloody ruin did it hurt. I cried out and fell to the floor as the tattoos on my back did their best to dissipate the energy. That probably was the only thing that managed to save my life.


    At least I wasn''t the only one that got hit by the defenses; the mages that shot at us got a face full of magic and carved a satisfying large swath of bodies.


    "Hah! Take that you jackasses!" I slurred out drunkly from the pain.


    "We probably shouldn''t be drawing undue attention from the group of very angry wizards, Jack," Lionel hissed at me as he pulled me back down to save me from the ice bolt that soared past just where my head was.


    "Good point. Those guys are probably the foot troopers that The Don hired. Nothing but expendable bodies," I said as thoughts coalesced in my mind to form a rather devious plan.


    I stood up, grabbed Sandra and Lionel''s hands, and ran like the Devil was on my heels.


    Now, you might be thinking "But that''s not very heroic!" Well, I''m not a hero. I''m just a man trying to live another day and right now, running away sounded fantastic. We left a horde of wizards chasing us and occasionally letting loose a few fire bolts our way.


    I ran and ran and ran. I ran until I found a series of back alleys. I yanked them into it and tried to lose them until I could get back to my apartment. If I could just get some supplies from my apartment then I''ll be more confident about facing off my pursuers.


    My heart felt like it was about to violently explode when I finally got to my apartment door. I dropped my keys five times before I finally got the door unlocked.


    "Bloody ruin! How the Hell did he manage to get that many men after us?!" I said with gasping breathes as I collapsed against a wall in my kitchen.


    "I''ve got to say, Jack. You''ve sure got a knack for making people have very strong opinions about you," Lionel quipped at me opposite of me as he clutched at his chest and tried to not die.


    Breathlessly, Sandra choked out at me "Now what are we going to do? I''m pretty certain that they''ll find us eventually and then we''ll be fucked harder than Kim Kardashian,"


    I liked her way of thinking and wolfishly laughed in a way that was more like a howl. I tried to stand up but my feet refused to move.


    "Here, let me help," Lionel said as he grabbed me and helped me up.


    "Thanks," I mumbled in reply as I went into my bedroom. Sandra and Lionel followed me in to watch as I went into my closet and tried to find what I was looking for.


    "Where is it? It was just here last week...I know I didn''t lose it," I fumbled around in my closet before I finally found it.


    "Ah! There it is!" I turned around and faced them with a loaded rocket launcher in my hands. I loved the look on their faces when they saw it.


    "Now! If they try to come here and kill us, they''ll have a nasty surprise!" I beamed at them like a lunatic and walked to the window to wait for them to come here.

 Chapter 11 Crossing The Rubicon

    Sandra and Lionel looked at me in astonishment, they just couldn''t believe what I pulled out. "What?" I said in annoyance at whatever got them all fish-mouthed again. They just stared more at me, this was starting to become a recurring thing for them. "Listen, if you don''t tell me what''s got you all like deer in headlights, nothing is going to get done here," I said as I sighed,


    They opened and closed their mouths for a while before Lionel managed to form words and say "Jack. I know that this is Avalon, where mysteries abound and nothing is certain, but why in all of the Hells of religion do you have a rocket launcher?"


    "Honestly, I don''t even know. Most of the weapons that humanity has ever created, unless modified by magic, are useless. If someone tries to shoot me with an arrow, I''ll just redirect it right back at them-same goes for bullets. So unless you enchant it, it''s less than worthless," I admitted to them with slight chagrin.


    "I''m assuming that other people have the same Gift as you do, but if it''s useless then why even bring it out when it''ll probably literally blow up in our faces?" Lionel said to me as he eased himself into a chair next to my desk.


    "You assume correctly; even worse, there will definitely be people in that mob that have a better control of force than I do. That''s why I''m using this as a diversion so that we can run like the desperate people we are," I said as I checked if I loaded the rocket launcher correctly, I would hate for all our efforts to be squashed by a misfire when we managed to survive some of the worst things Avalon had to offer.


    I heard Sandra slump to the floor behind me. I turned around and stopped my inspections to see what had happened. I saw Sandra lying on the floor, back against the wall. Immediately, Lionel rushed over to check on her and said frantically "What''s wrong? Are you okay?" He started checking her pulse as if that would help in any measure. I moved over to check on her. "What happened? Never mind, don''t answer that," I said as I rummaged in my coat to bring out my herbal tinctures. "I have crushed Fairy Wings and Dragon''s Tooth that''ll help you feel better,"


    She said nothing and just smiled as she shook her head at me. She laughed harshly as she answered us "It''s not that. I just can''t believe that Avalon really was as bad as the rumors said it was. I thought that all the ghost stories they told us about this place were just some conspiracy theories hatched up by some loons. But look at this place; I''ve seen more things that science couldn''t explain in a hundred years," I was worried by her response, I''ve seen enough straights come to Avalon only to descend into hysterics by the disturbing things that they''ve seen.


    But before I could do anything to stop her mad laughing, she stopped abruptly and said "Either this is a dream or I''ve finally gone insane. Just get me and Lionel back home so I can try to drown my memories of this Hell with cheap bourbon. That or having us all die at the hand of an angry mob so I could at least hold onto my sanity," Lionel didn''t know what to say to this and frankly, neither did I. We all certainly didn''t want to die in a small apartment with yellowing walls.


    We were saved of having to form an answer to that by the noise of scores of angry people waiting outside. I cautiously poked my head out to see just how badly we were going to die.


    Luckily, the majority were just a bunch of cheap thugs that the Don managed to scrape together but unfortunately, there was a single, solitary figure that worried me. She was Lexa Fletcher; monster-hunter extraordinaire, the Lawful Good mage of Avalon that somehow succeeded both in retaining her morals and staying alive. She could quite conceivably kill me.


    I turned to Lionel and Sandra so I could tell them what I wanted them to do, "I''m going to be very stupid a few minutes from now, so if you want to live I need you to find a place that won''t collapse on you," Before they could reply and before I could wimp out, I grabbed my rocket launcher and jumped out of the 3rd-story window.


    I softened my landing with my magic and my coat fluttered in a suitably dramatic way. I extended my right arm, fingers splayed out, and shouted "Tremebundus!" The ground around them shattered and sent chunks of cement flying into their bodies. I hoped to at least wound Lexa with that, but she calmly raised up a triangular shield of blue energy and was completely fine. "Fulgur!" I shouted and energy in the form of a green adder manifested. It rushed forward at an astonishing pace but Lexa merely tapped her foot and a great, stone wall appeared to block the blow.


    Now it was her time to fight. She lifted her arm and formed her fingers into claws. A blue circular array with runes and glyphs moving around on it that came from no language that I recognized which disappeared as soon as they appeared. It measured five feet across and appeared in front of her hand and before I could guess what that was going to do, black chains leapt out of it and wrapped themselves around me. They yanked me to her and left me on the ground, I tried to keep ahold of my rocket launcher but my fingers closed around only empty air. I struggled to get free but they were tighter than a giant''s hold. I screamed uselessly in fear as I saw her pull out her rapier and raised it with her thumb over the hilt to make it easier to stab me when I got pulled close enough to her.


    I tried to use my Gift to break the bonds holding me, but Lexa had killed enough mages to know what to do by now. Instead of breaking the chains, the chains just glowed green and then the spell rebounded and broke my ribs. I screamed in agony as I felt my bones get reduced into tiny, painful shards. I tried to squirm out of the way but the chains were relentless. I locked eyes with her and begged silently, she had nothing in her blue eyes but stoic indifference. I prayed silently to a multitude of gods but none intervened, why would they when I had pissed off so many of them. I watched as the thin blade plummeted down at me, I closed my eyes so I didn''t have to watch my own death.


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    I felt the blade press against my skin but then I heard a loud whooshing sound and then I felt an explosion just a few feet in front of me. I gingerly opened my eyes as my ears rang painfully to see Lexa hundreds of meters from where she stood above me. She laid sprawled on the street, unconscious and unable to kill me. My body slackened as I was reprieved, I tried to turn my head back so I could see who pulled my ass out of the oven again, but it was probably Lionel. I heard him breathe heavily and rapidly with adrenaline. Once he saw that Lexa was no longer a threat to our lives, he let the rocket launcher roll out of his hands.


    I stood up, which was a miracle in of itself considering that when I did it felt like I was being stabbed a thousand times over, and walked over to Lexa''s body. I checked her body for the expensive healing potions that I knew a wizard of her caliber always carried around; I had to make do with experimental drugs. I found one that somehow managed to not get crushed to pieces, and quickly downed it.


    I didn''t kill Lexa since at the end of the day, she was a good person and I probably deserved the beating she dished out on me. I wasn''t about to leave an unconscious woman with a whole lot of enemies out on the streets either. I tried to remember who she worked for before I remembered that she worked for The Church. I pulled out her phone from her pocket and dialed the only number in it. The phone barely rang before it was picked up, "Hello?" a voice said tentatively in answer. With no sugarcoating or grace, I said "I''m not dead nor is Lexa, you might wanna get someone here before one of her rivals finish what I did not want to start," I didn''t give them a chance to reply before I ended the call.


    I immediately collapsed from the pain again as the potion kicked in and forcefully knit my body back together. After the red haze of pain disappeared and fainting was no longer an immediate problem, I said to Lionel "What took you so Goddamn long? I nearly died again,"


    Surprisingly, it was Sandra that replied "Sorry to disappoint you, but it was me who saved you. Not Lionel,"


    "Oh. Good job. I''m going to buy you a cookie later," I said surprised that she got over her breakdown from earlier enough to operate a rocket launcher. "Where is Lionel anyways?"


    "Right here, trying not to get killed," I turned my head to see him huddled behind a car. "Good idea, next time I''ll join you," I said.


    I got back up and announced "We can''t afford to keep lounging around, we need to get out of Avalon and to Earth,"


    "Couldn''t agree with you more, Jack. Couldn''t agree with you more," Lionel said as he scrambled over to us. We walked out of the destroyed parking lot and jacked someone''s blue sedan; the only vehicle that survived my fight with Lexa. Lionel and Sandra ignored the felony and climbed in behind me. The car was dirty and unkempt, there were empty bags of chips, crushed bottles, and suspicious things that mold growing on them; but right now this meant nothing as long it got us out of harm''s way faster. I tried unsuccessfully a few times to force the ignition with my Gift until the engine finally turned on and I muttered a silent thank-you to no god in particular.


    We somehow felt safe in this rusting tin can that''ll do nothing to shield us but there was something in that false sense of isolation from the rest of the world that comforted us greatly. I pulled onto the main roads expecting an ambush to head us off or a sniper to kill us but we were oddly left unmolested. We got a chance to relax and collect ourselves from the day''s crazy events which we most definitely needed. There were no assassins in shadowy alleys to kill us nor wizards to bombard us nor mythical beast to smash us to bits, only neon signs running on damned souls and street vendors selling something-best-not-thought-about-on-a-stick. We saw nothing out to kill us for the entire journey, maybe they finally decided we were getting too costly to kill-whoever "they" was.


    Suddenly, Lionel said "Stop. That''s where we were told to wait for our ride back," He pointed at an abandoned factory still splattered with blood. Sandra raised one corner of her lips in disapproval and said "That''s a real welcoming place, not worrying whatsoever," I silently agreed with her on that, that was not a place that I wanted to go into-but go into I would regardless. We got out of the car and walked inside of the factory. What awaited us in the middle of the factory floor was a glowing blue miasma that stretched from floor to ceiling. It wasn''t very wide but big enough to cover all of us. Occasionally, electricity would race through it before quickly dissipating. We looked at each other gingerly before stepping forward as one to enter it. What would await me on Earth, the ancient birthplace of humans? Is it as soft as we all think it is or it is another place to make pissed off? Will I have enough time to get whatever the Hell the Historian wanted or will I be killed in spite of all the times I had cheated Death already?

 Chapter 12 A Series Of Less Than Ideal Events

    I didn''t know what I was expecting when I jumped into the big, scary rift of time and space, but this sure as Hell wasn''t it. I expected a short, but scary, scene of something that looked like it came out of Star Trek-all black and bright stars-and then a quick re-entry into something more normal. That was not what I got. While this may seem silly, what I go was a whole lot more....disturbing. Space and time roared around me, blue strands of energy surged around me and I felt like a giant was ripping me in half. The atoms that made up the very fiber of my existence were straining as they struggled to resist the force pulling them apart. The fabric of the universe were screaming in agony and decided to take that rage out on me with frightening glimpses of parallel worlds that had diverged into squarely unrecognizable things.


    I saw short rodents with a singular, giant eye in the middle of their grotesquely-shaped torso, I saw dinosaurs wearing lab coats experimenting on short creatures that looked reminiscent of humans but with none of our intelligence.  What scared me the most about it, was that I could understand what he was saying; they were cries of pain and pleas for death. My face grew blanched as I saw how fragile our superiority was, all it took was for one rock to not have been to trap us at the bottom of the food chain.


    I felt pain like none-other. It was all a heady rush of confusing pain. My glands pumped out chemicals but when they arrived, they found no injury to numb. So they just sat there, only adding to my pain. What a shame it would be for me to survive all of the monsters in my life, only to die at the magical equivalent of a crashing airplane.


    The pain disappeared just as suddenly as it came. One second we were in a tunnel of doom, one second later we were in Washington. The rapid shift from mind-splitting nastiness to calm, idyllic peace gave me nausea. I couldn''t find a good place to throw up so I just threw up on my boots. Thankfully, I wasn''t the only one as I saw out of one corner in my eye Lionel and Sandra also gracefully disposing of their meals in violent convolutions.


    I heard a repulsed, male voice say "That''s groovy, dude. Just throw up on the floor that I just got cleaning. Real polite,"


    Normally, I would have been mortified but I wasn''t quite feeling it today. "Hey. Guess what? Fuck you," I growled as I was leaned against the wall for much needed support. I managed to flip him the bird with both of my hands without falling, so that was a plus. He raised one eyebrow as he is hands went for his gun. Things would''ve gone downhill real soon, if not for Sandra. "I am Sandra Josephs and I am claiming protection under Federal Statute 147,"


    "Well, if it''s 147 then I guess my hands are tied," he said as his hands went away from his gun. I breathed a sigh of relief. "Where did you guys come from anyways?" He said, still cautious.


    Sandra was about to answer but I opened my big, fat mouth again and said simply "Avalon," I knew that wasn''t the right answer when he pulled out his taser and shot me with his taser. While I may have a high pain tolerance, the few milliamps that hit my chest didn''t seem to care how tough I was and I fell like a sack of potatoes.


    When I woke up I found that I after I looked around groggily, I was in a large enclosed room with no obvious exit. The walls were made out of some weird black metal that probably did nothing good for me.


    "Oh, looks like Sleeping Beauty woke up," a voice that seemed to come from no one source but from all around me. Not willing to be screwed with, I said "How many times did you say that already? I bet that you say that to every guy that gets his ass landed in here,"


    "Doesn''t matter how long I used it, it''s still funny cause you''re the one in a box," came the voice again, this time with more amusement than before.


    "Fuck it," I thought as I began to channel power into my hands but frowned as they fizzled out before they had any weight to them.


    "Ahh, yes. You must have noticed that you can''t use your power in here. Fun fact, the metal around actually inhibits use of magic. Expensive but nifty," the voice said with even more insufferable arrogance.


    My teachers always said that I had trouble responding to authority figures, I figure that I should be proving them right again. My face turned into a snarl as I willfully collect power into my hands again. The magic didn''t want to respond, but I was nothing if not stubborn. All I needed was some additional effort, and then voil¨¤! A hefty order of force coming right up!


    I spun around suddenly and lobbed it at the wall behind me. The moment I let it out of my hands, the magic started dissipating. What should''ve smashed open the wall like a fist through paper, only left a still satisfying crater. "How''s that for not being able to use my power, aye? You did say that it was expensive, right? Looks like you''ll be filling out some extra paperwork now and there''ll only be more if you don''t let me the fuck out of here!"


    There was a silence and then I heard a quiet "fuck," A moment''s pause later, and turrets popped out of the corners on the ceiling to shoot me with some nice, good electrical pain.


    I woke up again, this time in a large holding cell with a bunch of other ingrates. They were a smattering of people ranging from twitchy mana addicts to buff, silent men with tattoos scrawled all over them to a small, meek lady sitting by herself in a corner. They were looking like I was the new guy they were going to beat into submission. Well, fuck that noise. If I had even just had my coat and the stuff in them, I wouldn''t have given them a second thought. But well, I didn''t so I had to get old-fashioned.


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    I walked up to the meanest looking one of them, and said "Your mother is a whore and you''re gay," I smiled widely at my schoolyard taunts. He just looked over me lazily, and after examining what he saw, he dismissed me as no threat.


    "What are you trying to do? We weren''t about to beat you up for at least a few hours, you know. Do you think that since you''re a wizard, that''ll scare us?" He said emotionlessly with the boredom of a man that had been locked up more than the once. He and his five buddies started grinning at the prospect of a brawl that they didn''t even have to start. The one I was talking to decided to grab my shoulder, to which I responded with punching him in the throat with my fist which was enhanced with magic. It sent him flying and left him gagging with his hands around his neck.


    "Any of you inbred tools care to try to mess with me?" I grinned like a madman as I looked each and every one of them on the eye, making sure that they were picking up what I was putting down. They looked at each other, and decided silently to bum rush me all at once. Well, this was going to be fun!


    I enveloped my fists with force and I stepped forward to meet one of them''s charge with a jab to his chest, everybody could hear the crunch of broken bones as he fell to his knees. I then broke into a run to the one furthest to my right, he tried hitting me but I dodged with reflexes born from supernaturally fast creatures. Not a single one of his blows could land as I slipped between them like they were moving through molasses. I grabbed his head-when he saw my wicked grin, his face paled-and head-butted him. I turned around slowly to cock one eyebrow at he remains three "Well, are you just going to stand there like children or are you going to beat me up?" They advanced at me slowly, spread out, wary of any sudden movements.


    After being used to fighting vampires, this was practically bullying! I took pity on them and shouted "Boo!" They all jumped back like they just saw the Devil himself. My already wide grin grew ever more wide, to the point where it seemed like my face was about to split in half. Oh, how easily scared were the mundane! They had an expression on their face that shouted terror.


    "How about you go and help your friends over here back up," I said as I jerked my head towards the heaps of meat that lied on the floor. They still didn''t move, only watching me like rabbits in front of a wolf. I sighed and moved to the opposite corner of the cell, allowing them to move without fear of another beating.


    Now that I have established my dominance in the only way those apes could understand, I could wait for rescue in relative safety. I casually looked at them trying to pull their unconscious friends to as far away from me as possible. It was funny seeing how they couldn''t pick them up so they had to drag them across the floor. The addicts looked like they were about to jump out of their skin. They never were very stable, and the little show I put on for them only set them off more. The lady didn''t act like she saw any of it, only staring at the same corner she probably had been staring at since she got in here. Why was she in here anyways? She looked more like a housewife than a criminal. I walked over to her, sat down next to her, and asked gently "Why are you here?"


    I was not prepared for her rabid response; she leapt onto me like a barracuda. I yelped as I struggled to yank her off of me, I was using my magic too! She just refused to be pushed off of me! She started clawing at my face and shouting gibberish. I finally managed to get her off of me after I threw her off after using my feet to launch her into a wall.


    Gasping and disheveled, I said "Good talk, real productive," I expected a frenzied assault again but she just went back to staring at her corner. I shook my head as I sat back in my corner to wait for someone to arrive that I could talk to. Surprisingly, one of the junkies said to me "She''s been like that ever since she got here. Refusing to talk to anyone and stuff. We think she''s in shock,"


    "Over what?" I said with no small curiosity.  All I got was a shrug and one of the thugs saying "Be damned if I know, she''s a wackjob,"


    I gave up this line of questioning and went back to waiting for Lionel or Sandra to bail me out of this mess. After an hour nearly passed, I grew tired of waiting. I was silly for even assuming that they even knew where I was. Hell, I could even be in some secret facility! I could have been out of this already if I had my tools but hey, beggars and horses. I guess I was going to have to get out by the old-fashioned way.


    "Hey, any of you guys got any meth?" I said casually as I walked over to the junkies. They only raised an eyebrow and of of them wordlessly handed me one of her small, blue crystals that she stashed away somewhere. "Ross Hashanah," I drawled lazily as I took the crystal meth into my hands. I nodded my thanks and went back to my corner to do completely legitimate wizardly stuff. I''m not going to use it for myself, I promise! I wondered if summoning a demon would be a bad idea, being in an enclosed space and all.

 Chapter 13 The Great Escape!

    I sprawled over the rough concrete floor amid a sea of curious glances wondering what the crazy guy would do next. Well, something crazy obviously! A quick lesson on Demon Summoning, it doesn''t require black robes or candles and all it really needs is something to anchor them to our world-like blood or even just a sticker with the demon''s name on it, a vessel for them to inhabit-like a body or a child''s doll, and something to power them-from concentrated fear in a crystal or a battery. Obviously, there''s more involved with making sure the Infernal things don''t decide to kill you and wreak havoc on the world but hey; no pain, no gain.


    Ignoring their looks and pulled up my sleeve. What their reactions were didn''t surprise me; they saw the long scars running up my arm and assumed I was just another sad case. I knew from their faces by the way they softened that they didn''t fear me anymore, they wanted to pity me and for me to tell them all my problems. That was a familiar look after all, it''s been on mine often enough. Few realize the price we pay for our power; destined to live in paranoia worrying if their significant lovers really love them or if they are just waiting to let your guard down so they can harvest your power and to kick to the curb. Too many died from having not only their hearts shattered, but also having everything that they defined and based their life stolen. We don''t love easily or quickly, but when we do it''s like a firestorm; without caution and with wild abandon.


    "Enough of that!" I thought to myself as I reprimanded myself, stopping myself from treading too close to one of my skeletons. I pretended like I didn''t see their looks and picked one of my scars open. The crimson stream flowed freely and I dipped my right index finger in it. I used it to trace a pentagram onto the floor, seeing the concrete soaking it up like a thirsty, monstrous baby. I drew ideograms that belonged to civilizations that flourished and collapsed before the first humans ever stumbled out of their jungles. They were meaningless even to me, but they gave me a chill from their inherent brutality nonetheless. I pulled out the crystal meth and placing it in the center of the altar-because that was what it was, an altar meant to sacrifice to the beings we once worshipped as gods. I had everything I needed except the vessel, and I didn''t have a figurine handy nor was I about to let a demon possess one of the poor son-of-bitches in here!


    "God, I hate doing this but I''m going to do it anyways. Just like the idiot I am," I muttered to myself as I prepared myself to let a freaking demon take me over. Taking in a deep breath, I brought to mind the ancient words that were the only way mages knew how to bring them to our world and said something in a tongue that was not meant to be spoken by anything remotely approaching decent. It was harsh and grainy, like regurgitating sandpaper. It left my throat raw and bloody, ignoring the more worrying dangers to my immortal soul this might be causing. Sneaking a glance to my fellow cellmates, I noticed them shaking as they were clutching their bleeding ears. Was it really that bad?


    For a few seconds nothing happened and a collective sigh started after they thought that was all, but then Aeshma appeared. Their sigh of relief was halted as they saw him. An avatar of wrath, rage, and fury. A ring of bones surrounded his head like a ram''s horns. They sprung forth like flowers of death. His face is one of unending, twisted fury; always raging at order and humanity with consuming, black eyes staring into you. Damned souls fought to escape from under his blood-red skin, squirming like worms. They were the greedy men who gave up everything for power, they were the prideful women who longed for beauty, they were the foolish children who made an oath in anger. His physique was of an overgrown ram standing upright. His weapon-of-choice was a golden flanged-mace harkening to the Golden Age of Persia. Broken, obsidian  chains hung loosely from his wrists and ankles as symbols of his beastial nature. Strange, I could''ve sworn there were more links in the chains the last time I summoned him.


    After growing as tall as the room would allow him, he stomped his feet and bellowed a harsh bleat. It shook the room and threatened to bring it crashing upon us. They must''ve thought me mad when I said "Hey! Billy Goat Gruff! Enough with that!" An awful silence blossomed in the room as I gibberishly wondered if he had enough of my insults until a stuttering laugh erupted out of Aeshma. Perversely, I thought that it sounded quite cute and that was like the sound of a kid gurgling for his mother. "WHAT IMPUDENCE! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! THIS IS WHY YOU ARE MY FAVORITE MORTAL!" Suddenly, he no longer towered over me and shrunk to merely a few inches above my six feet and seven inches.


    I figuratively stepped forward and took hold of the conversation "As you can see, I am currently confined against my will and I do not the strength of the people that have imprisoned me, so I would like to borrow your might,"


    Aeshma pretended to think about this for a minute by manifesting monocles on himself and stroking his goatee before launching himself at me and pinning me against the wall. "Do yOU tHinK mE FOr a FoOl!" I tried to respond to that but it''s kinda difficult to do that when a goat-thing is choking you. He kept strangling for a few more seconds before letting me fall to the floor.


    He bent down and grabbed my face as he said "You have not prepared a vessel for me and what is to stop me from killing you, petty mage?"


    "Because I have prepared a vessel," I paused for effect and to rub it in his face before continuing "It''s me. I''m the vessel," I knew that would interest him more than any dead virgin on an altar. He froze in thought as he tried to find a word play in my words, trying to find a way that I could cheat him out of his bargain. He found none and said to me as he looked into my eyes "Are you saying that you would allow me to possess you?"


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    "Yes, but only for the duration of one hour and you are not allowed to invade my memories nor are you allowed to change who I am," I said in a single, rushed breath. Aeshma pretended to think this through before saying "And what would lead you to believe that I would accept such a bargain?"


    "You exist to cause chaos but you can''t do much by yourself, you require vessels. We all know that the stronger the vessel, the more destruction you can cause," I said, voicing what he already knew.


    He grinned sadistically and said "Well, what are you waiting for then?"


    An awkward pause elapsed before I coughed and said "I never been possessed before, I only seen it happen when you did the turn-into-dust thing and jumped into the doll,"


    Another awkward pause before Aeshma burst out laughing again, this time he was on the floor and pounding the concrete into dust while hysterically laughing. "Do you mean to say, that you are the possessing version of a virgin!" He couldn''t say anymore before descending into hysterics again, I''m certain that if he could have spoken that he would have mocked me mercilessly. I didn''t know why I was so embarrassed, it''s not like I was an actual virgin.....I''m not! Really, I''m not! Seriously, if you don''t stop smirking then I''ll kill you! I AM A GROWN ASS MAN, I AM NOT A VIRGIN! I realize that this isn''t helping so I''m just going to stop but I''m not a virgin. Just saying.


    I waited for Aeshma to stop laughing (you should too, before I get mad!) before saying impatiently "Can you get on with it or are you going to act like a little girl?" Still chuckling, Aeshma placed his hand on my chest and winked at me while saying "Here we go, Jack,"


    What happened next was...unsettling to say the least. His palm burned inferno bright as the edges of his body blurred. The world seemed to shake as Aeshma became just a blurry figure getting absorbed by me, I could no longer distinguish between reality and fantasy. The gaunt figures of damned souls getting whipped with chains in front of me seemed just as real as the people trembling in fear in front of me as they wondered what the Hell was going on in front of them. Memories of a beautiful world resting on the clouds where light was everywhere and bright but not blinding intermixed with memories of a wonderful blonde-haired woman holding my hand as we stared down ghouls in a dirty alleyway.


    I felt an evil inside of me like none before, was it Aeshma or was I finally seeing what I was hiding to everyone and myself?


    I coughed up black blood as I fell to the floor; a single, shaking arm trying to prop myself up. Great, shivering breathes came out as my chest felt unusually tight. Everything felt like they were burning.


    I tried to laugh, but all that came out was more blood, and said "Bloody ruin, all this for a magical hangover?" And then, as if waiting for me to say that, Aeshma showed me what power truly meant. I jumped to my feet as I felt liquid gold flow through my veins, it gave me an incredible strength. Strength, enough to reduce mountains to piles of scrap. Aeshma gifted me with the knowledge of warcraft; how to lay waste to entire armies, to entire civilizations, to entire worlds. A murderous laugh bubbled it''s way out of me and scared even me. I couldn''t stop laughing, I couldn''t stop laughing at the fragility of human existence. Oh! These weak insects calling themselves kings! Oh! These mortal beings calling themselves wise! Oh! These cattle calling themselves wolves! How laughable!


    "NO! THIS ISN''T WHO I AM," I shouted aloud to myself and perhaps the world as well. I do not exult in killing. Then a whisper "Are you so sure? Then why do you smile when you kill? I do not lust after power. "Then why did call me? A demon of war? I was speechless. Until I growled to myself "Oh, shut up! I''m the one in charge, you''re just a groupie,"


    I looked at the slack-jawed people around me and one of them, a junkie, said to me "What are you?" I didn''t know what to say to that, I think I forgot that a long time ago. The silence wasn''t doing much to convince them that I wasn''t some demon come to bring the downfall of Christianity. I tried to stammer out some lie to convince them but I stopped when I seriously thought about who I was talking too. For better or worse, I was a good liar but these people were as jaded as jaded can be. They''ve been lied to enough to separate the bullshit from the truth.


    Against all of my instincts, I told them as much of the truth that I could. "I''m from Avalon. I''m here to retrieve an artifact that could seriously do bad stuff if it were to fall into the wrong hands. I just need to get out of here," A silence, then a quiet voice "Are you sure that you''re the wrong hands that it shouldn''t be falling into?" Surprisingly, I laughed and said "Believe it or not, I''m actually not that bad of a guy. Besides, I''m not going to be keeping the thing," A quiet examination, and then he gave me a nod as if allowing me to leave.


    I turned to face the cell bars and I thought that I could hear the boots of people rushing down to see what was going on here. Grinning wickedly, I pulled more power to myself than ever before-regardless of the inhibitors set in place-and blew out the entire thing. I called up my black wings and roared. I had enough power at hand to create a sizable earthquake. Oh, this was going to be fun!

 Chapter 14 The Troubled Mind

    I spiraled upwards, through multiple ceilings, to finally make it to the top. I saw scant few things through my black haze but the few things I did see, I wanted to destroy. The people that I saw, were not people to me. They were just another thing to knock over. My eyes, like small flames, blazed bright and got giddy at the prospect of death. Aeshma wanted nothing more than to finally plunge the world into chaos. Well, fuck that! I reached inside of myself, and felt a terrible, dark greasiness. It refused to sit still and be grabbed. It squirmed and writhed and raged, refusing to be cheated out of its destiny. How silly we must have looked, a black-feathered ram wrestling with itself.


    We fought not on the physical level, but on the mental. I plunged into the wasteland that has become my psyche with teeth bared and gun ready. The scorching winds reached a crescendo and buffeted me with winds that would have torn my skin to ashes. I did not even deign to notice this pitiful wailing and simply drew my coat closer around me. My eyes wandered to the sunset skies to look upon Aeshma''s version of the Eye of Sauron; two black pupils that were black holes, sucking in the light around it, with candles'' flame for irises. With a baleful glance, the flames opened up like the abyss and out poured a legion of insects that were melted black wax given half-forms. They spoke in a tongue that was an attack in-of-itself and brought to mind the clicking of crickets warped by a black mind.


    They swarmed me, trying to latch on and dig their insidious unbodies into me. I raised my right hand and indifferently created a barrier. An invisible force sprang to being and formed a thin shield between me and the mouths ringed with pearly white teeth. There was a metaphor hidden in there somewhere, how a man relies on a mystical force he created to keep himself safe from the Hell he plunges himself into. I brought my revolver to bear, and struck down the fetuses born from natures'' worst nightmare with every step forward I took. I could see nothing past the mass of little bodies. They all had different expressions on their minuscule faces; some were about to twist themselves apart with rage, some were filled with lecherous lust for the chance to feast on me, and some yet were simply impassive. They were filled with an incredible hunger. I saw some consume their brothers in front of them, only to be consumed themselves by those behind them.


    I walked for a time unknowable until I grew tired of being surrounded on all sides by an ocean of black wax, and slit my wrist. They could smell the blood and thus drove them into a greater frenzy. I let the blood collect in a growing puddle before me until I sent it floating past my barrier and into the insects watching with greedy eyes. They all crowded into a focal point directly above me and forming an inverted pyramid. If the Egyptians built pyramids to worship the gods, would this be to worship the behemoth? They drank until there was none left and then the rest of them killed their kin bloated with my blood, rupturing them and surging to drink spilled out. The corpses slid off the domed shield as a waterfall of black oil. This continued until there was only one left. I watched it with curious eyes to see what this last survivor would do; he lazily gilded down until he was nestled between the corpses of its brothers. I had a feeling that he would stay there until he died, fat on ambrosia.


    I let the magic die and I was left standing in a perfect circle surrounded by death. I moved on, ignoring the sounds of the meat sticking to my shoes like gum. I walked and walked and walked under the watchful gaze of Aeshma, seeing but not moving against me. I walked until I saw a mountain jutting out of the ground like someone had took the Marina Trench and placed it upside-down. I could see no end to the great thing. I grew tired of the idea of walking any longer and slammed my foot once on the barren earth, sending myself rocketing to the summit. I saw the blurred forms of his minions as I sped up the mountain and I was glad that I did not have to do battle with his countless spawn. I gently set down on a boulder that was placed on the peak and looked at the throne of Aeshma.


    It flickered back and forth from a throne of flame and brimstone to a throne of entropy. The flames had faces, the faces of the people I had gotten killed, they judged me and jeered me. There were too many flames. The brimstone assaulted my nose in a cascading wave of regret, sorrow, and impotence. It was not a mere flame nor a mere brimstone. It was there at Ground Zeros around time; Hiroshima, Nagasaki, 9/11, Sukhoy Nos, Alexandria, Rome, Chicago, and so many more.


    The throne of entropy was made from bones of all the genetic dead-ends of humanity and the creatures of rot. You could see the bashed in skulls of the children of primal humanity. They were so small but carried an incredible weight. They didn''t deserve this, the skulls that decorated it could''ve been very easily us if not for a few good environmental rolls of the dice. Crawling between the bones were maggots, flies, parasites, fungus, and every decomposer imaginable and impossible. They ate, they died, and were consumed; fueling the cycle of life with their deaths.


    Aeshma was not fearful of me, and why should he be? I was just another stepping stone in his path, useful but forgettable. He knew that I knew that there was nothing that I could do to make him fall from his ruinous throne. At least, normally there was nothing I could do but it''s amazing what mind-numbing, all-consuming fear can do to a man. A sane man would have fled, a foolish one would be already dead, and a good man would never be here in the first place. But I was none of these things, I was a mad one. I always did shine the brightest with my back to a wall and surrounded by rabid dogs.


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    Fear has pushed Men to the extremes, both good and bad. It allowed him to run away from the beasts hounding him and tipping at his heels for miles. It allowed him to fight to incredible ends, long after his arms grew as heavy as lead. It allowed him to make incredible things, such as harnessing the power of the sun. But it has resulted in genocides. In wars. In purges of arbitrarily drawn-up ethnic groups.


    I barked out a harsh word pregnant with power and sent an earthquake at him. He did not so much as tremble at my pitiful display since he knew his Infernal enchantments would shield him and his throne. But I was aiming at the ground beneath them, and I sent them plummeting. I did not let up and launched mountains down the chasm to bury them completely.


    The ground shook once again, but this was not my doing; it was Aeshma''s. He was still sitting in his throne when it blew through the layers of bedrock, his expression only changed slightly from one of disdain to slight amusement as he looked down at me from his levitating perch. A glance, and the ground beneath me was suddenly a nest of venomous snakes. I kept looking at him as I tapped my foot and crushed them all with invisible force. I strode closer to him and took out my athame. Before he had a chance to react, I shoved it deep within my chest to pierce my heart. My chest was a cage that got blown open when I ripped my still-beating heart out and stared at my heart that sent out pulses of Amber every time it beat. I whispered words that I didn''t know I knew and my heart became a golden river, covering me in the armor of Ra and changing me. I wielded a golden, two-handed fan-axe in both hands in place of my gun and my coat became a set of rippling, bronze scales. I had golden bracelets on my wrists and a set of chains appeared, linking me to Aeshma. I freed one hand and used it to pull Aeshma to me and I raised my axe high above him. He opened his maw and out spewed a fountain of blood, drenching me and blinding me. He took advantage of my momentarily confusion to ram me in the gut. The scales managed to rebuff the blow but the force behind his blow sent me flying until the chains grew tight.


    I stood back up wordlessly and slashed the air in front of me with my fan-axe to send a shimmering crescent of blue energy at him. Aeshma deftly dodged it but my attack simply changed direction to sink solidly into him, leaving a cut running diagonally across his chest. He looked taken aback at the fact that someone had managed to finally hurt him in centuries, and that it was a mortal to boot. His confusion allowed for me to rush forward and slam the head of my axe into his torso. A fan of black blood gushed out, it covered me and ate away at my scales. I paid no heed to the hiss of the metal being eroded away and kept at my bloody work.


    My hammering blows woke him up to the reality of what was happening and he wrapped the chains around my neck, choking me. I pulled frantically at my neck, trying to break his hold on me, and dropping my axe. He had a simply titanic strength and while I was nearly as strong, I had no idea how to use it properly. Hell, I could have been able to summon the godly equivalent of a mini-nuke for all I know. The blackness around my vision were getting bigger so I did the only thing I could; I jumped off the cliff. We were two lovers embracing each other to the bitter end.


    He looked into my eyes for any sign that I would let go, but all he found in my yellow eyes was a death wish. There was nothing more scarier to an immortal than a man with nothing to live for. If a man has the will to live, then there will be certain things he will not do. He will not take measures so drastic as to destroy the world. He will not kill himself if the slimmest chance of winning exists. He will not do the unthinkable. But I was a man fighting for control of my body. My mind. My life. And there was nothing I wouldn''t do to remain myself. I would set the world ablaze just so if Aeshma took me over, he would have nothing to do with it. I would shatter my own mind just so he could never leave nor could he move my body. I would die before letting him take me over. I would do anything.


    He knew this. He knew that I would never let him take over, even at the expense of my own life. He saw the look in my eyes, and it was not one of a man''s but of a beast''s. He roared in frustration as he conceded defeat to me and promised flee my body if I would let him live. Not satisfied with just his word, I followed his exit out of my body making sure he left no parasitic seed in me to later sprout in me and have this whole process begin again. I followed him all the way until he finally left in a swarm of the tiny skeletons of insects out of mouth.


    My mind snapped back into place and I could finally see the world in front of my eyes again. I was no longer a deity of destruction, but just Jack. I was somewhere in an office filled with fleeing people and growing fires. I stood back up shakily and I was determined to get my stuff back before I left this building.


    God! Was all of this really worth my life? Then I remembered the horror that The Historian would set on me if I didn''t get his damned artifact for him and thought "Yes, it is very much so worth it, Jack,"


    I walked over to an unconscious office worker, took his clothes, and pulled him off to the side where he should be relatively safe until help arrives. I followed the herd of people fleeing the room and hoped that I blended in well enough.

 Chapter 15 A Stones Throw Away

    People are like ants; following orders left by people they never met, doing things for no benefit for themselves, and utter idiots in any sort of disaster. When they hear of death and chaos, they flock to it like lemmings, never mind the potential harm to themselves! Oh no, after all, it could never happen to them! When they heard that a government office building blew up, the gawkers came in droves.


    We were trying to quickly evacuate down the fire stairs, everyone except for me not knowing what happened, in a mass of sweaty humanity. The people around me had only a modicum of mana and the basest understanding of how to use it-yet they thought themselves special-it was an supremely sad display. I was willing to bet that most of them didn''t have enough power to rub together to even light a cigarette. I grabbed the shoulder of a woman biting her lip anxiously, and said "Do you know where they keep confiscated materials in here?" Normally, she would have been suspicious and wondered why the Hell a man wearing clothes that were too tight for him was asking about items in police custody, but most people lose their wits in a crisis. "In the Occult Intelligence''s property room on the fifth floor,like always,"


    I wordlessly split off into a corridor on the stairway that was conveniently on the fifth floor, and I heard say behind me "Wait! What department do you work for!"  I ignored her and strode into the anonymous room that strove to be like any other, laden with porcelain tiles and bright lights. I saw a heavy, steel vault door and knew that that was where they had my stuff. I didn''t really care about tact or finesse normally and now that I was in a burning building, I really didn''t care. The vault was probably enchanted and had a whole slew of hexes on it to ward off happy-go-lucky people like me, but that didn''t stop it from folding like a lawn chair when I punched it with the force of a semi-truck. Fire, lightning, and ice raced out and slammed into me but I already was looking like I got dragged to Hell and back so it didn''t matter.


    They put my stuff in a box near the corner and after I put my coat back on, I saw a bag of heroin they had lying around which I took in case it could be valuable and as a half-assed attempt of trying to throw them off of my trail. Having gotten the things I came here for, I slammed my foot down repeatedly and rode my express elevator down threw each floor until I fell into a crowd of confused people wandering why someone fell through the ceiling. I gave them a cordial nod like this happen everyday and walked out before anyone could ask any questions.


    A press of firefighters ran in trying to calm the people as I walked out and one of them threw a coat at me, thinking I was another victim staggering around in shock. I took it and wrapped it around me, playing the part they thought I was playing.


    An explosion shook the air and everyone rushed out of the building together like an enormous millipede. The pedestrians rushed over to them, asking the most inane questions and asking for autographs, and tried to take pictures of the inferno above them. They paid no heed to the fact that it could all come crashing down upon them or thought about their own survival.


    I got onto the streets of D.C and tried to figure out where this "Smithsonian" was when I saw a girl standing on a bridge. Curious, I walked to her to get a closer look. The first thing I noticed about her was her green hair (they were like sea foam and looking like they were purposely made to look like she just got out of bed) and lurid amount of piercings; lips, nose, tongue, you name it and she''ll have them somewhere. She had on ripped jeans that didn''t seem like they were ripped beforehand and we''re all too tight. She was wearing a black, studded leather jacket over a t-shirt faded to obscurity and that were artfully ripped to expose certain amounts of skin. Tattoos were scrawled over her like a psychedelic nightmare, images of Vedic art drawn entirely in black and self-pitying quotes in ample amounts. She was as pale as willow tree and looked like she spent most of her time in musty basements listening to whatever local band that was there at the time. You could tell that she wasn''t wearing a bra even from here.


    When she saw that I was walking towards and wasn''t just another pedestrian wandering the streets, she purposefully took out a cigarette from her pocket and when I got close enough, she started blowing smoke rings into my face. It was so comical that I burst out laughing, both at the classic teenage ennui and how it was nothing compared to some of the things you smelt in Avalon. She didn''t know what to make of me laughing like a loon when I should''ve been the grumpy adult sputtering in outrage, so she insulted me "Are you crazy or something? Do you like getting blown by girls more than half you age or something?" She tried to be rebellious and edgy but to my ears that have heard the sounds of a world trying to tear itself apart, it was frankly quite cute-like a puppy trying to bite your finger. She was sneering at me until I finally managed to control myself.


    "Done laughing at me yet fuck-face?" She spit that out at me like I was a basilisk.


    "I''m sorry, but I just thought that you fit the teenage angst trope to a T," I said with mirth still in my words. She rolled her eyes at this and said with disgust "Typical. Just typical of me, to be fucking laughed at by an old dude while I''m trying to kill myself," This caught my attention and I said sharply to her "You''re what!" She did that arrogant little sneer again and said "Now you care, people only care about me if they have an opportunity to make themselves feel morally righteous about themselves. Oh look, there''s the suicidal girl. You know what I should do, I should pretend to be her friend so I can feel good at Church later! That''s all they ever do,"


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    I was silent for a time, I didn''t know how to react to this. She was giving me a look, trying to see what I was going to do next. I said to her quietly "Why do you want to die?" I didn''t expect her to be so quiet for so long. A few more minutes passed and then she said "Because. I don''t feel like there''s anything else to live for," She said it with such a lackluster amount of emotion that reminded me of myself when I was young. I asked her "Do you know about magic?" She snorted and said condescendingly "That''s all the media plays on the TV nowadays, just boring clips of scientists explaining how this affects this atom and stuff. It''s nowhere as exciting as the books made them out to be. All they taught us was this," She snapped her fingers and a faint flame appeared as she raised another cigarette to it and started smoking. How strange it was, talking to a suicidal girl on a bridge in the middle of the day.


    I made my mind up and said to her "Listen. Your life is your life, I can''t tell you what to do with it, but I can''t just leave you here to die. Is there anything I can do to help," Again, she gave me that jaded sneer and she grabbed my collar "What can you possibly do to help?"


    I though about this for a few moments and said "Magic. I can teach you magic," Her eyes widened and she grabbed me harder and looked into my eyes as she said "How would a hobo like you know magic?" I smirked self-depreciatingly at her comment, I did look like a homeless person after all. I gently removed her hands from my shirt and raised my right hand. She looked at it suspiciously. "Can I have your name at least? If I''m going to be showing you my magic?" She disdainfully looked at me. I sighed and told her to watch the river. I closed my eyes and let my instincts take over until I felt the right moment to unleash the power. Finding the right moment, I shouted out a random nonsense word to help direct it-I didn''t know if magic was somehow weaker in Earth. Luckily, I was as strong as ever and the aftermath of me throwing a kinetic cannonball at the river was us being thoroughly drenched in water from head-to-toe. She was wide-mouthed at this and she was sputtering as she tried to talk.


    "How! What! But! Ugh!" I just stood there with a quiet grin. She seemed to grow by ten sizes when she was grinning at me. She wrapped herself around me and placed one hand on my cheek as she said seductively while biting her lip "I don''t suppose that you''ll mind teaching a lost girl a little magic, would you?" I ignored her elementary attempts at seduction and said brightly "Sure! I just need you to do one thing for me!" An instant look of disgust popped onto her face. She punched me as hard as she could and stepped back from me. Strange, considering how she seemed like she was about to have sex with me right on the bridge. I raised both of my hands in placation and said "That''s not what I meant! I just need you to give me directions to the Smithsonian,"


    She looked at me suspiciously again and said "And that''s all. No weird stuff. No kidnapping me and selling me off to the cartels,"


    "No weird stuff," I said in agreement. "Great! Now let me show you where the Smithsonian is!" I blinked at the sudden change from depression to seduction to disgust to cheerfulness. Also, I was going to get directions, ditch her, and leave her mad but alive, looks like that she saw through that and now I wouldn''t be able to get rid of her.


    "Come on! Hurry up!" She said as she grabbed my hand and dragged me down a series of meandering alleys and backends. I was struggling to keep up with her as she leapt over trash cans and rubbish. "Your name?" I shouted at her as she jumped on top of a taxi. "What about it!" She shouted back as I tried to copy her move but failed miserably, landing most precariously. "You didn''t tell me it yet!" I yelled as we tried to lose the patrol cop chasing after us. A silent second before she replied quietly "It''s Temperance," I raised an eyebrow at that and said "Really? She got mad at that and said back in a snarky tone "Yeah, I know that it''s funny with me and all but it gets really annoying when everyone you meet comments on that like I had a say in what my name would be,"


    It was funny how mad she got at that, I had a quiet grin on my face as I imagined how she would be sneering. She guessed that I was probably smiling at that so she flipped over a hot dog stand in the park we were in. I tripped over it and fell on my face, I probably deserved that. But that didn''t stop me from using magic to push her into the bushes. I burst out laughing as I saw the comical look on her face as she somehow got pushed meters into the roses. I stopped when I got to her and had a wide grin on my face as she tried to get out without messing up her hair. "Need a hand?" I said to her mockingly. Which explained why she punched me in the gut. "Shut up and follow me," You know, I would bet that the reason why she turned around so quickly was so that I couldn''t see the grin on her face. We were like this all the way to the museum. It''s amazing what just a few hours away from Avalon could do for me, I need to get out more.

 Chapter 16 The Smithsonian

    Temperance and I were laughing all the way there. She complimented my rough jadedness with teenage energy and I helped her teenage despondency with my harrowing tales of bravery (sarcasm intended). I laughed as she flipped a group of leering boys with too much hair gel on that were shouting cat calls at her. She shrieked with delight as I grabbed her and jumped a hundred feet in the air. We ran past drunk groups of frat boys that tried to hassle us and when Temperance pulled out her knife, they all suddenly decided that they had somewhere else to be. We ran like this for a while, not saying anything, just enjoying the companionable silence between people that knew that nothing needed to be said-just a quiet understanding that ran deep. I didn''t think of her like a potential girlfriend or anything, just a friend with no bridges burned. She told me of how ran away from home the moment she graduated from high school and how she had been sneaking into the classes at the liberal arts college in D.C and I told her about when took on a pack of kobolds with nothing but a broken branch.


    When we finally reached the Smithsonian, we looked up at the marble columns and I thought of Greece. It was not the crumbling nation of now but I thought of the Parthenon in its glory days, of when Greece was the center of learning in all of the known world. Of when being a Greek citizen made you a blessed man. Of when people would gather at the marketplaces to hear philosophers speak. That age was gone, but this age is here. Temperance grabbed my hand and dragged to the front. When the security guard came over, she burst out running and I chased after her on the pretense of catching a rebellious daughter. I was glad the security guard couldn''t see my mischievous grin.


    While the museums on Earth had nothing on the museums back in Avalon, the Smithsonian was more...respectable. We had garish displays of mini-cthulhus on display for all to see, with handy diagrams pointing to the half-digested bodies of its victims. Here, there were gorgeous bouquets of flowers from around the world. We had ceilings designed to mimic the catacombs of one of our worse warlords. In the Smithsonian, there was a room designed to look like a cave, with stalactites hanging from the ceiling to produce breathtakingly beautiful crystals. If The Grey Historical Museum was designed to vault the atrocities of Man and the horrors that lies beneath the world''s shadows, then The Smithsonian was built to celebrate the natural world and the arts crafted by Man.


    I stood in front of a giant crystal that seemed to never have a specific color for an innumerable amount of time, until Temperance grew tired of my geeking out and poked me in the side. "What''s so interesting about a bunch of rocks anyways? They aren''t that valuable," I just merely said in response "Only fools believe that only that which sparkles is beautiful, wise ones know that their true value lies in their complexity," Temperance only gave me a strange look and walked a few feet away. Just to spite her, I admired the rock some more until setting out to do what I was here for; to retrieve an artifact of unknown power. I asked her if she knew where the archives were and she told me that she did. I asked her how and she grinned as she said "It''s amazing how much the stuff in there sells for," My eyes bulged as I found out that she had sold priceless pieces of humanity''s inheritance off. She rejoiced in my sputtering outrage.


    She set off running again as she bolted towards a set of doors. I shook my head ruefully as I followed behind her. Surprisingly, there was none there to stop us or ask us what we were doing here. It wasn''t until we reached the bottom of the stairs that Temperance finally turned around and got uncomfortably close to me to ask why I wanted to go into the archives. I was about to answer when I was interrupted by a familiar voice "Why he''s here to steal a very important artifact. One that could upset the balance of the world if the legends are what they are as cracked up to be," Dispelling her veil was The Gaping Maw. One of my eyes twitched nervously as she walked leisurely towards us.


    Temperance froze like a deer in the headlights as her eyes locked onto the multitude of mouths on her neck. I shifted my hand subtly to grab my gun as I said calmly "What do you want with us, Maw?" She chuckled with all of her mouths-a disturbing sight to behold-and said "Why to find the artifact,"


    "Interesting," I said as I pulled out my gun and let loose a series of shots that let out a dull thud as they were chewed by her mouths like I was throwing pieces of popcorn at her. Not caring that they did nothing, I kept firing. She theatrically yawned and with a flick of her wrist, pulled my gun out of my hands with her whip. I did the only logical thing that came to mind, I ran with Temperance in tow. Crowing in laughter, Maw flicked her whips and pulled down a shelf laden high with papers and materials that must''ve weighed a ton with one, easy movement. The sheaths of paper flew down like dead doves. I ran past every shelf and Maw pulled down everyone with a sadistic smile that grew wider as the number of bookshelves decreased. A fact that I was growing painfully aware of. Temperance hissed at me "Why aren''t you using your magic to kill the bitch!" I couldn''t help myself, I laughed. "I can''t "kill the bitch" as you so eloquently said because she''s an Xandrite. A species of monsters closely related to vampires but instead of sucking blood, they suck magic. She has probably killed more mages than we''ve been alive," She looked skeptical even though we were running away from a multi-mouthed creature from Hell.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    "She looked pissed off at you, I''m guessing that you managed to beat her before," Oh, curses on intelligent women! Why do they have to ask questions! I sighed and said "Yes, but that was when I had Infernal Acid. Which is incredibly expensive and I used the last of it on her already," She had a look that reminded me of my teachers when I told them that didn''t bring a pencil to class. "Does she have a name or are we playing the pronoun game?" Temperance asked. "Yes but it''s in a series of clicks that I could never be able to pronounce. Why does that matter anyways?" Temperance shrugged and handed me a Molotov Cocktail, proving to me once again that all the cute girls are as crazy as bats. I smiled approvingly as I took it from her and asked her to light it. "It''ll be my pleasure," she said as she took out her lighter and lit the cocktail after she finished lighting her own cigarette.


    I shook my head ruefully as I saw this, she had more sass in her than people twice her age. She saw this and gave me a wink. And let me tell you, with the books flying everywhere, the pieces of ancient relics lying broken at our feet, and her wonderfully crazy self that it was the most beautiful thing I''ve ever seen. We rounded the corner of the last bookshelf and Maw taunted us with "Looks like your running is over, Jack. It''s been nice knowing-," She cut herself off as she saw me; a disheveled man holding a Molotov with a girl at his side that was wearing incredible amounts of black but still managed to look more colorful than both of us combined that was smoking a cigarette as a epic battle occurred. "Ah, fuck," Maw muttered as her whip that she sent out preemptively to snag us instead hit the Molotov, sending a firestorm of modern Greek Fire raining down on her.


    It was incredibly disturbing to see dozens of mouths screaming in pain at the same time. They all were writhing in pain and the fire went down their gullets, I wonder if the mouths had tiny, little brains of their own. For the second time in a row, I won. The Gaping Maw went berserk with pain and was rampaging. She tore great ruts in the marble floor, carving them like butter. She screeched like a harpy and caused us to frantically cover our ears. She finally used her titanic strength to bust a whole in the wall and tunnel her way out. I wonder what the media would make of a burning, multi-mouthed, whip-wielding monster. They''ll probably blame it as some kind of liberal art project. Impressive, how even with magic publicly accepted that they still find a way to pin it on something safe and normal.


    The mundane people are far too obsessed with everything fitting into a neat little box that they forget about all the things that don''t fit. I was saw a demon rampaging through London and having the government blame it on a juiced-up drug addict. As if a druggie could punch holes through one feet of industrial steel beam. But hey, if they want to bury their hand in the sand, more power to them.


    I turned around to say something funny to Temperance, when she slapped me extremely hard across the face. She had tears on her red face. "You could''ve gotten us killed! I almost died! You dick!" This was completely incongruous with her previous badass demeanor. I gaped at her confused as she kept on hitting me and slapping me, but she was growing increasingly inaccurate as her tears got more prolific. I asked confusedly "But you seemed calm and composed and chill before?" She got even madder when she heard me say that and began trying to kick me in my testicles. I didn''t know what to do, but in the movies this was usually when the guy hugs the girl.


    Needless to say, I wasn''t used to hugging people and it was incredibly awkward. I was slowly holding my arms out and kind of just grabbing her into a weird hug. She stiffened up for a few moments but then relaxed. She accepted my hug and I let her cry her feelings out. A few minutes passed until she stopped crying. A few more before she silently moved out of my embrace. "Thanks, but never hug me again," She said quietly. I smirked and said "Believe me, that was as awkward for me as for you," I did a mock shiver and grinned down at her. She managed a small smile and said mouselike "It was probably more awkward for you, but it was more painful for me," Obviously, there was something going on that I didn''t know about and I wasn''t one to pry.


    I changed the subject hurriedly and asked her about why she was crying. I know, I know that wasn''t the most tactful way to do things but I was put on the spot there. She barked out a harsh laugh and said "I''m sorry that I''m not som sort of wizard that sees stuff like this everyday, but a chick with mouths all over her like a fucking tapeworm is kinda scary. Even more so when she''s trying to kill you," I chuckled embarrassingly when I realized that I didn''t think of that. She pulled out another cigarette and offered me one, I was about to refuse but I saw the look in her eye that said I better take it or else. I tentatively took one drag before bursting into a coughing fit. She rolled her eyes and kept smoking. A few more minutes passed before she asked me curiously "Where are you from, anyways?" I said simply "Avalon," She started  coughing and said "Avalon! But that''s illegal!" I sighed and wondered how badly I fucked up this time.