Diablo III: Storm of Light (4 page)

It was not the first time this room had been used for evil. He recoiled, breath catching in his throat, which had suddenly gone dry. Spatters of old blood, black as pitch, speckled the walls and floor.

Cultists, in service to the witch
.

He had thought the Coven had been wiped out by now, or at least scattered to the wind after Maghda’s death. Jacob held still, his sword out, his heart racing. His long-dead father’s words came back to him:
Don’t go rushing in like a wounded bull unless you want it to be your last fight
. He had broken a basic rule, one he had followed faithfully before. He considered turning to run; Jacob
was no match for them, not anymore. He was no longer the avatar of Justice now that El’druin was gone, vanishing in the night and leaving him powerless.

But if he ran, the woman would die.
She is an innocent
. He could not let that happen.

The room was silent for a beat, and then the men turned their hooded faces toward him as one. The creak of the chair as the woman struggled sounded desperate and ugly, and Jacob could almost feel the cold bite of the cultists’ blades as if they were against his own flesh, sense his lifeblood leaking out and painting the floor red.

A noise came from behind him. Jacob whirled and found the fat man had somehow gotten around to flank him, although he couldn’t have missed him on the way through. The man now stood blocking the exit, meaty arms folded across his chest.

The fat man chuckled and shook his head. “Jacob of Staalbreak.”

“How do you know my name?”

“You have gotten lazy in your
retirement
. Did you really think it would be such an easy thing, robbing me of the spoils of my labors? Did you think I would tell you everything you want to know without a fight?”

“Do I—Have we met?”

The fat man chuckled again. “Not in this flesh.”

He reached up and clawed at his face, running his nails through puffy jowls, pulling his own skin down in long yellow strings that stretched and cracked like clay in the sun. Exposed beneath it was a dripping monstrosity of glistening sinew and muscle and horned bone, red eyes glowing as if with the fires of the Hells far beneath their feet.

“Bar’aguil,” Jacob whispered. He had encountered this demon before, years ago. The Burning Hells had been pushed back, but their minions were still wandering Sanctuary and thirsting for innocents’
blood. He thought back to the tavern, the casual mention of Tyrael; with little effort, the seemingly bumbling fool had drawn him out into the storm. A trap had been set, and he had walked right into it.

And the medallion?
The chill in Jacob’s blood deepened. What that meant was too terrible to imagine—

“Murderer,” the demon hissed, moving forward. The flesh of the former storyteller hung from his glowing face like a grotesque mask. “Hypocrite.
Monster
. You have hunted us for years. It is time to repay the favor.”

“Maghda is dead. And Belial is long gone.”

“We are in service to new masters now.” The demon scuttled ahead like an insect, then stopped, cocking his head at Jacob. “You would be surprised to hear of it. But you won’t live that long. Do you know what we’ll do, murderer? Do you know where you will end up, once we are finished with your bones?”

Jacob swung the sword one way and then the other, trying to keep both sides at bay. The hooded cultists had also shifted toward him, and he felt the old squeeze of panic begin low in his belly.

When one of them leaped at him, Jacob barely had time to turn fully in that direction before his attacker was draped across his shoulders, his foul breath in his face, the smell of meat heavy and sour.

The weight of the man’s body drove Jacob down. But he had gotten the blade under the cultist’s ribs. Yanking upward as he fell, Jacob felt a hot gush of blood wet his robe. They landed hard. The man grunted and moaned, twitching, his legs shuddering against the floor.

Before he could push the dying cultist away, the others had Jacob by the arms, lifting him and twisting cruelly at his sword hand until he dropped the blade. The two largest ones pinned him against the wall, feet off the ground, as Bar’aguil approached,
face dripping blood and fat, demon eyes glowing in the shadows. Bar’aguil reached out a hand, the tips of the fingers now split like cooked sausages, claws extending from them and ending in curved points.

“You shall pay for that,” the creature hissed, bloody foam and spittle forming where the storyteller’s lips had been. “Your precious archangel’s sword cannot protect you now. Tyrael is dead, and judgment rains down on Sanctuary! Men shall suffer. And we shall emerge from the ashes, stronger than ever.”

The runes on the floor pulsed red. The demon gripped Jacob by the throat. Claws sliced into his flesh, and he choked as his air was slowly cut off, stars winking deep within his eyes, the whirl of lights growing brighter until they threatened to consume everything that he knew and loved . . .

He wasn’t sure what happened next. The lights in his head shifted to somewhere beyond him, and when he came fully back to himself, the demon had let him go, and his feet were on the ground.

He gasped for air, bringing oxygen into his lungs with hot, ragged breaths.

Bar’aguil had turned with the other members of the Coven to face the figure who had been strapped to the chair. She stood upright, arms free, the remains of her bindings lying in tatters on the floor. Between cupped hands was a brilliant ball of purple flame. But Jacob’s eyes were fixed on the woman’s beautiful face.

“Shanar?”

“Duck,” the wizard said. She released the ball of pure arcane energy with a flick of her delicate wrist, sending it spinning toward the nearest cultist. As the energy hit the man in the chest, it exploded into pieces, and Jacob threw himself to the floor, covering his head.

When he looked up again, ears ringing, there were only two hooded figures left standing with Bar’aguil. The demon snarled
in rage, leaping forward with his claws extended as if he meant to rip the wizard’s head from her shoulders with a single massive blow.

A glowing bubble of light burst forth around Shanar, enveloping the demon and the remaining cultists along with her. Their movements slowed to a crawl while she moved with stunning speed, summoning spikes of crackling energy in her hands and throwing them like glittering purple spears, dancing around the helpless creatures caught in her web.

And then, only moments after it had begun, it was over.

The bubble of light faded. The remains of the fat man who had been inhabited by Bar’aguil lay torn nearly in half and bleeding on the floor, dead cultists arranged around him like some kind of macabre display.

Shanar stood at the center of the carnage, bare shoulders back, beautiful breasts heaving against a leather corset. She had cut her dark hair to shoulder length, but otherwise, she was unchanged from the woman Jacob had lusted after, not a wrinkle or blemish after twenty years.

Shanar met his gaze with the familiar defiance that had always driven him crazy, in every sense of the word. “Same old story,” she said. “Saving your hide is getting old, Jacob. I waited as long as I could, but a girl gets tired of being tied up after a while.”

“You could have sped things up a bit,” Jacob said, getting gingerly to his feet and recovering his sword, wiping it clean. He touched the shallow cuts on his neck from Bar’aguil’s claws, looked at his fingers. The bleeding had stopped, but the sting to his pride remained.

“Where’s the fun in that?” With the barest hint of a smile on her lips, Shanar stepped delicately over the nearest body. “I needed you to come hither, and I had to wait for the demon to reveal himself to be sure it was time to act. Of course, you were
supposed to save the damsel in distress and redeem your own sorry skin. Best-laid plans . . .” She extended a hand. “Now, before we’re overwhelmed by nostalgia and drift off, I believe you have something that belongs to me.”

Jacob dug in his tunic and produced her father’s medallion, one of the few items of any tangible value that were precious to her. The symbol of the alchemist. Shanar had told him a story once about removing it from around her dead father’s neck before the coffin went into the ground. He had never seen her without it.

“When I saw this, I was afraid that it meant that you . . .” He let the sentence hang in the air. Even after all these years, he wasn’t good at expressing how he felt about her. It was one of many things that had finally driven them apart.

“Reports of my death have been seriously exaggerated,” Shanar said. She took the medallion and tucked it away. “I let the demon take it; it served a purpose. I knew I’d survive long enough to get it back. You, however . . .” She studied him, and he thought he sensed some tenderness there, although perhaps he was just imagining it. “You look a bit worn around the edges.”

“It’s been a long year. What are you doing in this part of town?”

“Not here,” she said, glancing at the carnage. The runes had begun to fade away, and the darkness was leaching in. She picked up a wizard’s staff that had been placed at the center of the circle, hidden by the runes until now. “Outside.”

The front room was blacker than the night beyond it. Shanar muttered a few words and raised a ball of blue light on the end of her staff. It lit the darkness, and Jacob followed her as she flung the front door wide, the sudden icy wind whipping through them like a banshee, cutting through his bones, and bringing in the stinging grit from the street.

“Wait,” he said. “You still haven’t explained what you were doing here.”

Shanar sighed, as if he were asking a great favor. “Remember when you found that cave with El’druin waiting for you, and I was waiting there, too?”

He nodded. “You carved my life story on the walls.”

“I followed the resonance of the Crystal Arch,” she said. “The Heavens led me to you and the sword, and all these years later, they’ve led me here. I’m not sure why, but considering the circumstances, I figured I ought to listen.”

A familiar charge ran through him. “I . . . I thought I’d never see you again.”

“That was the plan.” Shanar shivered, hunching her shoulders. “But plans change. Whether we like it or not.” She turned away again, heading out the door.

“Where are you going?” he called after her.

“To pick up an old friend,” she said over the wind. “Come on. I’ll explain more on the way, but there’s no time to lose. We leave tonight—”

He reached out and grabbed her arm. “Hold it, Shanar. Just like that, you come back into my life and expect me to follow you like nothing happened?”

The wizard shrugged away his hand. “Look, I know we’ve got some unfinished business between us, but you’ve got a choice: keep wallowing in your own self-pity and drink away your sorrows for another fortnight, or come with me for another adventure, just like old times. Who knows? I followed the resonance once, and it led me to El’druin. Maybe the sword’s calling me again, and it wants me to bring you along.”

With that, she turned once again and disappeared into the night.

Jacob stood on the threshold, torn. That was a cheap shot, he thought. She knew what the loss of the sword had meant to him,
knew how he would feel if she even hinted that he might find it again.

And yet what did he really have to lose? She was right: he’d been wallowing in self-pity for too long. There was nothing here for him in Caldeum. Seeing her had brought back all the old feelings. He wanted to see her face again.

And perhaps, just perhaps, El’druin was waiting along with Shanar.

Jacob pulled his hood up against the stinging wind and went after her.

The monk paused at the top of a rise, motioning to his two companions to hold back. He looked out across a ruined landscape, searching for signs of danger. The small valley was still. Dusk had begun to give way to night, and a half-moon had broken through the clouds enough to outline the stunted, skeletal trees that stretched their bony fingers toward the blackened sky.

More than enough to expose the ruins of the old cathedral that lay scattered across the next hill.