Brothers: Legacy of the Twice-Dead God (91 page)

However, I did feel the teeniest bit guilty
when Ferrin’s spell flew past me and hit the man to the right of
the first. Only the teeniest since he was in the middle of a
casting himself. I wasn’t used to seeing Ferrin actually tossing
that kind of power around and this was a majorly twisted reality
he’d created. One of them had started to form a shield but it
wasn’t nearly strong enough or fast enough. Ferrin’s chaotic red
and gold twist flared as it punched through then ruptured as it hit
the man. The cascading flares of energy in sheets of gold and red
ripped him to shreds by slicing through him at oblique angles.
White-hot lightning fired at the planar joins, stabbing fiercely
through what little we could see of the man. The power the man held
fed Ferrin’s spell again as the energy wave released into it and
the spell doubled in size, seizing one more mage fully in its power
and grazed the last mage, removing his arm just above the elbow. He
didn’t start screaming until the light show ended. Then the blood
pulsed out of the arteries in his arm with the beat of his heart.
His scream lasted until he passed out, which only took a few
seconds.

Ferrin didn’t stop there, though. He did
lessen the severity of his attacks, though I doubt his victims
would agree. Another few words spoken in a harsh and gutteral
language and he turned into a living Van de Graaff generator. At
least that’s what it looked like to me in the bright violet light
he cast off. Maybe living lightning would be a better description.
He struck each man with a weapon through the metal of the weapon,
excising each with surgical precision. They fell, smoking and
singed, and I couldn’t tell if they were going to get back up
again. Definitely not anytime soon. He turned back to the remaining
men, snarling. They jumped but more or less stayed where they were,
hands out, heads ducked. Leatherman and his men seemed more
threatening now that their side just bashed the competition, more
puffed up, pumped.

“Have we got your attention now?” yelled
Ferrin. He had to yell to be heard over the crackle of his own
energy storm. I scanned the nearby buildings just in case something
showed up in my heightened awareness. Nothing did, but I wasn’t
sure how far past the roof it would extend.

“The young man behind you has a few questions
to ask,” Ferrin yelled. “Answer quickly and to our liking and you
may walk out of here in one piece. Blow smoke up his arse even once
though and you get to find out why I’m afraid of him.” He cackled
while he powered down, to a pretty cool effect, if you ask me! He
pushed it straight back into the battery I gave him. Any other mage
watching would’ve choked watching him swallow that much power. Like
I said, pretty cool effect.

But he was wiped out. Totally gassed. That’s
why he passed the game to me and now I had to watch out for him. He
trusted me. I didn’t think he did that.

“All right, let’s make this quick so these
fine gentlemen can get back to their lives, shall we?” I yelled,
mostly to get their attention turned back to me. I made eye contact
with Mr. Leather then looked at Ferrin with what I hoped was a
meaningful look.

“Start with why you were following him in the
first place,” I said. “Who wants to answer?” I looked of the group
of seven remaining conscious men. I tried not to look any further
at the others. There were several bodies strewn around.

“We are the backup team for the contract
killers you just… killed,” said a rather average looking man close
to the middle of the group. He was average height, brown eyes,
good, solid build, average.

“And you are?”

“Dan Wilkerson,” he said, gulping
slightly.

I used the Stone’s power to move him in front
of me while dropping the Day Sword into my hand. It brightened the
rooftop considerably.

“See my bright and shiny Sword, Mr.
Wilkerson?” I asked him, my voice devoid of sarcasm but the
question wasn’t. “This blade is sharp enough to remove your skin a
layer at a time and there are seven layers of skin on the human
body. Continue to lie to me and I will show you how painful that
process is. Do you understand me, Mr. Wilkerson? Or do you want to
be the object lesson for your fellows?” The Sword thrummed then, a
deep bass sound of yearning to do the deed, providing a counter
point to my threat to him.

“I wasn’t lying!” he cried with a pained look
on his face. Fear streaked through his aura.

“It was misleading, though, wasn’t it?” I
said. “Same as. You made it sound as though they were leading you.
What is your title?”

“What?” he asked, acting confused.

Thrusting out, I put the point of the sword
under his chin and raised his head, making him look at me down the
golden blade. “Last chance.”

“Lt. Commander Dan Wilkerson,” he said with a
grimace.

“And why were you following him?” I asked
again.

“Our mission was three-fold: follow the mage,
identify his associates, especially those with like talent, then
assist in his assassination.”

“And why was he targeted for assassination?”
I asked the suddenly talkative lieutenant commander.

“He is an abomination of nature,” he said
matter-of-factly.

“What?” I said, thoroughly confused by
that.

“Didn’t you see what he just did? It was
unnatural! He, no, you are an abomination. Demons, all! You look
like men but you hide in your ivory towers converse with the devil
about God knows what, making decisions that affect thousands of
men’s lives. You turn a man to dust on a whim. You’re fucking evil
and the world needs to be rid of you. I’m just sorry to be the
first team to lose in battle.”

I just stared at him for a moment. Then I
called the scabbard and sheathed the Sword and hung it from my belt
that the Stone quietly formed for me.

“There are so many things wrong with that
spiel I don’t know where to start,” I said, shaking my head. “Last
time I checked, though, there wasn’t a ‘Lucifer Lightbreaker’ in my
calling plan.” I leaned up on my toes to look over him to Ferrin.
“How ‘bout you, Mike? You got Satan on your speed dial?”

“Nah!” he yelled. “Had a Suzy Satin once.
Exotic dancer from Chatwick. She was a bit evil in the sack,
though.” He received a raucous round of laughter from the gallery
of leather men with that. I thought that was kind of odd,
considering where they came from, but really, who was I to judge?
And it was kind of funny.

“Also, isn’t it the Jews that run the world?
No, wait, it’s the Catholics. No, wait, you’re right, it’s the
Illuminati or a Star Chamber. OPEC? The Masons? Rosicrusians? Opus
Dei? That’s the Catholics, so never mind. Maybe we are and I just
didn’t get the memo. Do you know which one of us is doing it? ‘Cuz
I got a bone to pick with him. Or her.”

He wasn’t amused. Darn.

I smiled at him. “I don’t expect to change
your mind there. You have such a religious fervor about that
belief. But consider this, if I can do anything I want, why would I
want to control you? I mean, who are you to me?” I jumped through a
portal and came out behind him. “I mean, really, who are you that I
should care?” I jumped back in front but to the right by three feet
of where I was. “This morning I was in Ireland. This afternoon, New
York, and now I’m here and it was pure luck that I ran across a
friend of mine and ended up here. But you wouldn’t have fared any
better against him, though, I assure you.”

I moved back in front of him. “But the most
damaging thing that you have said is that this is your side’s first
loss. That actually says a lot about your side. First, it says that
your upper echelon is a bunch of liars. This isn’t your first loss.
This is my third win and his second. In a week. The first wave of
attacks was about thirty percent effective and you paid an
extremely high price for all of them. In mine alone, about
thirty-four men were killed and another sixty and some were
captured.

“That you believe it means that your
operation runs in cells of some kind,” I continued. “You don’t see
your own fighting forces completely. I’ve seen mostly groups of
four. And they can be modularized into eights, twelves, and
sixteens, like tonight. Just a guess, mind you, but am I
right?”

Wilkerson went stoic at that point.

“Cat got your tongue, now?” I asked him.
“Seems a bit late for that, Mr. Wilkerson.”

“You’re lying,” he muttered, his eyes filled
with hate and mistrust.

“Yes, Mr. Wilkerson, I have so much cause to
lie to you,” I said sarcastically. “You and your people have scared
me so much that I shall go back to my high school and think of
nothing but girls, the Prom, and which community college I should
attend next fall.”

I felt a tiny twinge of power use near me,
just the smallest push of energy in our direction, but not at me.
The Night Sword would have reacted to that. This was directed at
Wilkerson. He stiffened abruptly and gasped. Then there were more
fluctuations coming and I pushed myself and I pushed hard to crush
those tiny fluctuations aimed at my prisoners. I wasn’t fast enough
to save all of them, though. Wilkerson died as he fell forward into
me. I couldn’t tell why, it was happening too fast. Two more of
those tiny little spells got through the iron curtain of the
Faraday cage I threw up around them. The cage was so strong around
them that it gave off a light blue glow, a trail.

Letting Wilkerson’s body fall to the ground,
I followed the loose paths of the spells back across the rooftops
to a building caddy-corner. Seeing nothing but HVAC units at first,
I pushed out into the energy plane and kept looking. There, behind
the heat sinks of the air conditioners near the back corner, was a
man huddling, hiding. He poked his head around one side, hoping no
doubt, to see us panicking over the deaths of our captives.
Instead, we locked eyes, even over that great distance.

And I had his secret. Something about those
double irises in elven eyes that they just couldn’t veil from me.
Why he thought he could get away from me, I didn’t know for
certain. He knew who I was and what I was capable of, the weapons I
had at my disposal. But he tried anyway and he still tried to make
it look human. Good for him. He stood and ran for the edge of the
building and jumped. My resolve crystallized. He wasn’t getting
away that easily.

A man jumping off a four-story building is
pretty stupid. Chances of surviving aren’t good. An elf, well, much
higher. But he wasn’t going to land here. He’d pierced the veil
between worlds just below the lip of the roof. I could feel the
land of Faery from here like an itch I couldn’t scratch. My anger
got the best of me and I just reacted in the same way I’d been
reacting to attempts on my life all night.

I created a portal. Right in front of his and
he fell right through it. I kept it open as he fell toward the
Atlantic Ocean, just to make sure he wasn’t able to open another to
escape through. But only for a moment. Apparently, elves aren’t
adaptable to low air pressure with high winds. I watched with some
satisfaction as he bloated suddenly and an arm was sheared off his
body in what I assumed was a crosswind. If he screamed, I didn’t
hear it. I closed it after I realized he wasn’t in any condition to
do much of anything, and the hole into Faery as well, turning my
attention back to our captives.

Wilkerson was dead. There was nothing I could
do for him now, but two of the elf’s spell got through. The two
fallen men were surrounded by their fellows protectively. I
understood that, considering their perspective. All they’d seen was
three men collapse and me turn away for a few seconds. I doubted
they could see the elf, or even the image of a man, on the building
so far away and at night. I didn’t have time to be understanding,
though, these men were gonna die if I didn’t do something.

“Get out of my way,” I yelled and using the
Stone’s power, I shoved the standing men into the wall of leather
men. Kneeling down, I slapped my hand on the chest of the first
fallen man and started hunting for the elf’s spell. Small and
fast-acting, I knew it had to attack the brain, so that’s where I
went first. The man was hemorrhaging blood—I found the spell. The
elf was inducing strokes.

First I sealed the blood vessels that has
been cut. There were two, an artery and a vein. Then I started
moving the escaped blood slowly back out through existing veins and
out into his blood stream, relieving pressure and stopping further
damage. There was damage already, though. A good amount of tissue
around the cuts had already necrotized. I moved to the second man
and went straight for the brain. He was like the first except I’d
stolen a little more power from that spell. It had only managed to
nick enough of one artery to cause a rupture, but it was a bigger
bleeder. The artery had already sealed itself—score one for healthy
living. I searched through the damaged area for anything
salvageable. There wasn’t much I could do. It was depressing that
it was so easy to do so much damage with so little effort.

Sighing, I heaved myself to my feet as I
pulled out and realized there was a fight going on. The four I’d
tossed aside were fighting with the Leather men to get back to
their fallen comrades—I wouldn’t try to think they were friends.
Some of the Leather men were good fighters. Most of them weren’t
even involved at all except in the shouting. I don’t think the
military these guys belonged to would appreciate knowing about
this. Snapping a few pictures with my cell phone, I sent them off
to Peter’s phone and hoped they’re decent in the dim light. They
looked hilarious to me, Joe College jock getting whooped up on by
Leather Biker. Still, I had to be the adult here and break it
up.

Exploding two huge flash-bangs at the feet of
the fighters, I shouted, “That’s enough!” Nobody heard the shout
after the bangs but everyone was so disoriented by it they
separated anyway. Ferrin sidled up beside me, having taken
precautions apparently.