Cody
sat on a bed reading. He heard barking
behind him. He turned around. He saw Sparky sitting and wagging his
tail. Cody smiled. He put his book down, stood up and took his
true form. He bent over and patted his
knees. “Here, Sparky.”
Sparky
ran up to and pounced on Cody, leaving a trail of black, smoking paw prints
behind him. Cody fell back as Sparky
licked him. Cody laughed.
Cody
looked at the door when he heard it open.
Valthakar stood there. “It’s
almost time,” he said. “We need to get
down there.”
Cody took a deep breath. “Right,” he said, nodding. He looked up at Sparky. “Off.” he said. Sparky stepped away. Cody stood up and followed Valthakar
downstairs. He called Sparky to come
with him.
*****
Cody
stood in front of the door to the basement, next to Valthakar. Justin was on Valthakar’s other side. They waited a few minutes.
They
heard stirring downstairs as Bavandersloth awoke and ate the thirty humans
they’d brought to him over the past few nights.
They braced themselves.
One
of Valthakar’s souls phased through the basement wall. “He’s got all of them,” the soul said. Valthakar nodded. The three waited for Bavandersloth to burst
through the door. Valthakar sent the
soul back in. Bavandersloth didn’t come
out. Cody breathed deeply, clenching his
fist. Bavandersloth would no doubt turn
invisible, but he would have to use the door to escape, or else make a hole in
the wall. As soon as anything opened,
Valthakar would blast Bavandersloth, destroying his lower body and keeping him
from moving until his frenzy was over.
*****
A
few minutes later, a hole appeared next to the door. Valthakar fired a magical beam at it. He moved the beam up and down so
Bavandersloth could not crawl under it or jump over it. A section of the basement below was worn
away, but Bavandersloth was not hit. He
must have jumped back from the hole.
Valthakar’s
soul came back out. “Small holes, like,
finger sized, are appearing in the walls.
I think he’s trying to climb them.”
“Where
are they exactly?”
“To
your left.”
Valthakar
nodded. He kept his one hand on the door
while holding out his other hand, prepared to fire on any holes that appeared
in the wall. Soon enough, one did. Valthakar let out another magical beam. Like the last, he moved it up and down to
keep Bavandersloth from sneaking past it.
“Odelarch,” Valthakar said, “stand in front of the wall to the left of
me. Prepare to fire.” Odelarch nodded and obeyed. Bavandersloth’s shield would be able to block
Odelarch’s blasts, but by using his shield, Bavandersloth would reveal his
location. Sure enough, a hole did
appear. Odelarch fired several blasts,
making craters in the basement floor.
The
soul came back out. “He’s climbing over
the first hole,” it said. Valthakar
nodded. The soul went back inside.
“Tkoralkiarch,
prepare to fire on him from my other side.”
Tkoralkiarch nodded and took a few steps to Valthakar’s right. A hole appeared there and Tkoralkiarch fired
a series of magical bursts, one after the other. Another hole appeared nearby and Tkoralkiarch
fired with his other hand.
Another
hole appeared. Tkoralkiarch took a deep
breath and alternated between the two closest holes on his left. Another one appeared next to that. Valthakar alternated between what were now
the two closest holes on his right. When
another hole appeared next to that, Valthakar repositioned himself, firing at
two holes with his left hand and two with his right. Holes continued to appear until each lich was
occupied with four holes, two for each hand.
A
few minutes passed. Valthakar’s soul
emerged at one point and said he didn’t see any new climbing holes forming in
the basement. Valthakar nodded and the
soul went back in. As Valthakar focused
on the holes in the wall the door swung open and a shot emerged from it. Valthakar’s eyes widened. He activated his shield while Bavandersloth,
presumably, ran out. Blasts from the
other two liches flooded the area, but to no avail.
Valthakar
thought. Bavandersloth wouldn’t go out
through the front door. That’d be too
predictable. He’d expect someone to be
ready to fire at him as soon as it opened.
Instead, Bavandersloth would go for a window. Valthakar turned to the others. “I’m going to cloak myself. You two split up. Odelarch, you stay on the third floor,
Tkoralkiarch, take the second. I’ll
summon some souls to monitor every inch of the house. When one of them comes to you, do whatever it
says. There’s no telling what kind of
destruction could be wrought if Bavandersloth makes it into town.”
The
two nodded and ran upstairs. Valthakar
cloaked himself. He summoned an army of
souls and ordered them to monitor the house.
He stood in the great room, looking around. A few minutes passed.
A
soul approached Valthakar telling him that a window on the third floor had
broken. Valthakar’s eyes widened. He ran outside, firing his magical beam
around in a circle, but nothing came of it.
Eventually, Valthakar stopped.
He
ordered his souls to get the other liches.
They did, and the others ran downstairs.
Valthakar decloaked as they came out the front door.
“What
are we going to do?” Tkoralkiarch asked, his eyes wide.
Valthakar
sighed. “We’ll split up. You go out and search for him,” he said. “Try to predict his behavior. Above all, what he wants right now is food. He’s going to look for large groups of humans.”
Tkoralkiarch
looked at Valthakar. “What about you?”
“I’m
going to warn the public about this.”
Tkoralkiarch
squinted. “Wait, wha--”
“Bavandersloth
gave me a script a month ago. I know
exactly what to say.” Valthakar looked
out into town. “He also made some plans
for how he’ll act right now. He may want
souls above all else, but his other desires are still extant, and if it doesn’t
lower the amount of food he gets, he will still obey them. He still doesn’t want to ruin his own plan.” Valthakar looked back at the others. “Get going.”
The others nodded and activated their clouds. They went off, Sparky following them.
Valthakar
ran back inside the house and grabbed a pre-paid cell phone. He called 911.
“911. Where is your emergency?”
“This
is Orichalcum, the Angel. Something went
wrong with Light-rook’s restoration. The
portal we summoned to let him come back here… something else got in. It’s running away from our headquarters. I should be somewhere in Northwest Goldfalls,
not too far South of the Northwest District.
I have no idea where it’s heading, but it’ll want to run to a population
center and kill anyone it sees.”
The
911 operator took a while to respond.
“Alright then. I’ll alert the
police. Please stay on the line.”
“I
will, but would it be okay if I called someone else on another phone?”
“That’d
be fine.”
Valthakar
put the phone down, putting it on speaker, and picked up another one. He called Channel 4.
“Hello,
you’ve reached channel 4 news. How can I
help you?”
“This
is Orichalcum. I have urgent news. Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of
lives are at stake. Put me on air now.”
The
man on the other line was silent for a moment.
“Okay, sir. I can give you the
mana--”
“Please
do.”
There
were a few beeps. Another man came on
the line.
“Yes,
hello?”
“This
is Orichalcum. Something’s happened and
a disaster is imminent. If you have a
way of broadcasting me--”
“What
is it?”
“Our
means of bringing back Light-rook has brought something else back instead. It’s one of the creatures I mentioned in my
first interview; a devourer. I don’t
know exactly where it is, but it’s heading into town, and it’s liable to kill
hundreds, maybe even thousands of people.”
There
was a pause. “Yes, alright sir. I’m trying to get you on the air right
now. Violet’s in the studio.”
A
few minutes later, the man came back on.
“Alright, we’ve got you on with Violet in one.”
“Thank
you.”
Violet
Fox came on air. “We interrupt your
regularly scheduled programming to bring you a message from the Angel
Orichalcum. He’s joining us over the
phone. Orichalcum, please speak.”
“Thank
you Violet. A few minutes ago, we were
working on bring Light-rook back. The
actual process of restoring his body is done by now, in theory. However, the body was built somewhere else
and had to be moved here. We opened a
doorway to let him step through, but he was blocked, and a devourer came
through.”
“A
devourer?”
“Yes. As I said, they’re like our evil twins. They have a lot of our powers, and one is
created in their dimension every time one of us is born. They have an irresistible urge to kill, but
there’s nothing they can kill where they live, so whenever they come here,
they’re itching to cause destruction.
There is one rushing towards town right now and I have no way of tracking
it.”
“Should
people evacuate their homes?”
“No. I’m not sure if there is a good way to
protect yourselves. If everyone tried to
evacuate, that’d just cause traffic jams, which would be like giant buffet
lines.”
“Wait,
buffet? Do they consume par--”
“Don’t
think about it. If you want my advice,
just stay in your homes. Avoid large
groups of people. This thing’ll go
wherever there are the most people for it to kill. Don’t bother barricading your doors. That won’t do any good.”
Violet
stood, mouth wide. The interview went on
for quite a while longer. Before too
long, Valthakar picked up the cell phones and went outside to search for
Bavandersloth himself.
*****
Bavandersloth
ran along the road, rushing toward a destination he already had in mind. He saw a car approaching. He stopped.
He licked his lips and stood, crouching on the side of the road. He thrust himself into the car as it passed by,
landing inside with his waist on top of a child.
The
car contained a man, a woman, and two young children. The woman gasped. The child Bavandersloth now lay across pushed
on him and screamed. Bavandersloth put
his hand on the car’s vinyl and willed the whole car to decay away. The man, who’d turned around, widened his
eyes. He slammed on the car’s breaks,
but the car was gone before it could reach a full stop and the humans tumbled
onto the road. Bavandersloth rolled too,
landing next to the older child. He
extended his scythe, and then scooped up and ate the child’s soul. He stood up, listening to the adults
scream. He ate the other child and
destroyed his body. The adults ran away,
but Bavandersloth chased, caught and devoured them. When he was done he turned around and resumed
running for his original destination.
*****
Cody
and Justin stood in Goldfalls’ Central Square, watching Valthakar on Channel
4. Central Square was always crowded,
even now, so it was not too unlikely that Bavandersloth would come here and
attack the many humans waiting nervously for taxis and fighting over busses. If he didn’t, the many screens all around,
all broadcasting news, could alert them to where else he struck.
As
Cody watched, trying not to enjoy the thick smell of fear around him, he saw
Violet Fox’s eyes widen. His did
too. Violet interrupted Valthakar. “Sir, sir.
We’ve got some breaking news.
Several police have been called to The
Jackal. That’s a bar in the
Northwest of town. The creature is
apparently attacking there.”
Cody
and Justin stood up and ran in that direction.
*****
Andrea
and Felix rode up to The Jackal on
their colorful motorcycles. DIAPP’s
helicopters roared above them. They
heard screaming inside. The two rushed
in. Andrea grabbed an ink bomb from her
side and activated it, covering her helmet’s visor with her arm. The bomb threw out a smoky mist of purple ink
which clung to every surface, including the devourer in the corner.
The
devourer turned around. There was a
group of civilians behind it. Andrea and
Felix lifted their left arms and pointed their liquid nitrogen hoses at the
devourer. They fired. The devourer ducked away, the liquid nitrogen
hitting one of the civilians behind it. Andrea’s eyes widened. She clenched her fist and looked at the
devourer. It activated its shield and
ran at Andrea. She dashed to the
side. The creature swerved, changing
direction and rushing toward Felix. The
creature lowered his shield, got close to Felix, and then reactivated it.
Felix
fell backwards onto the wall of the magical bubble. The devourer leaned down and ate Felix’s
soul.
Andrea’s
eyes widened. She shed a tear. She gritted her teeth and lifted up both
arms, aiming both her liquid nitrogen hose and her flamethrower at the
devourer. She waited for the devourer to
try something. It didn’t. It just circled around Andrea. The creature still had Felix’s body. It lifted it up. The devourer ripped off parts of Felix’s body
and used them to defile others. Andrea
clenched her fists and seethed. The
devourer kept going, moving toward the door, mocking her with Felix’s corpse. Andrea clinched her teeth. The devourer moved, staying inside its
shield, until it was just outside the door.
It lowered its shield and quickly raised it.
Reflexively,
Andrea shot her flamethrower at the creature as its shield lowered. The building lit up. Part of the door collapsed, probably due to
the devourer, trapping Andrea inside.
Her eyes widened. She looked around. She saw the devourer approach a window from
the outside and made the wall around it collapse. She ran toward the next window, but the
devourer beat her to it, and to the next, and to the next.
She
turned around, looking at the pile of civilians in the corner. She couldn’t tell if any of them were alive.
She
stood at one end of the bar and shot the other with a grenade launcher. The wall collapsed, making no hole. She seethed.
*****
Cody’s
eyes widened as he approached The Jackal. It was ablaze, and was surrounded by
firefighters. Bavandersloth was long
gone. Sparky looked at the fire. He wagged his tail.
Cody
thought. If Bavandersloth did have a
specific destination in mind, and he probably did, he’d run straight toward it. The mansion was to the Northwest of this bar,
so Bavandersloth was heading Southeast.
Cody,
Sparky and Justin ran off along the road.
*****
Through
a camera on one of DIAPP’s helicopters, Agent Lambert watched the devourer run
as he sat in his organization’s headquarters.
He searched the area. There were
no humans around. He smiled. “Fire,” he said.
The
helicopter launched a rocket downward, toward Bavendersloth. Bavandersloth put his shield up and slowed
down, forcing the rocket to overshoot him.
Agent
Lambert ordered another shot to be fired.
Bavandersloth sped back up, dodging it again.
Bavandersloth
stopped running. The helicopters zoomed
past him before he they were able to turn around.
Agent
Lambert aimed the camera behind the helicopters. He gritted his teeth.
Bavandersloth
pointed his arm up at one of the helicopters and fired a magical beam. He hit its main propeller. The helicopter fell to the ground. Bavandersloth licked his lips and rushed over
to where it seemed like it was going to land.
He jumped up and through the helicopter, scything and chomping a few of
the souls inside. Rockets hit the
helicopter as he exited it, making it explode and propelling him forward.
Bavandersloth
fell on his face. He stood up and
ran. Agent Lambert ordered his
helicopters to fly up higher and rain bombs downward. The helicopters rose. Bavandersloth looked up. He lifted his arm and aimed up at one of the
helicopters, but his magical beam missed at first. Bavandersloth smirked and waved his magical
beam from side to side. Hitting them,
but not for long enough for a magical beam to do enough damage.
Bavandersloth
took a deep breath. He held out his arm
and jumped upward, firing a magical blast at one of the helicopters. He missed.
Agent Lambert smiled. The bombs
were almost armed. Lambert turned to his
side to take a sip from his glass of water.
Bavandersloth
closed his eyes ran to the side. He
jumped up as the helicopters’ bomb hatches opened. He fired a magical beam into one, and then
the other. The bombs exploded. Agent Lambert’s view screens went blank. His eyes widened. He crushed his glass, cutting his hands. He seethed and shed a tear.
*****
Bavandersloth
smiled as he watched the helicopters explode into millions of pieces. After a second, though, he frowned. He could have eaten those people. Oh well, there were still plenty more souls
out there, and he was almost to his first big destination.
*****
Cody
ran, wishing he’d brought a phone so he could stay in contact with
Valthakar. He and Justin kept
going. A while later, they passed by a series
of televisions in a display window.
“…now
attacking the Isle Hotel…” Cody’s eyes widened.
*****
Cody
rushed up to the hotel, Sparky and Justin on either side of him. People were running outside. Justin sent a soul inside. A few minutes later, as the pair entered the
lobby, it came back. According to the
soul, the lowest several floors were evacuated, but Bavandersloth had trapped
people on the upper floors by destroying the stairs and creating spike pits
below them by making negative spaces of the right shapes decay away. There was a SWAT team inside.
Cody
jumped to the second floor and then dashed upstairs, looking for Bavandersloth. He’d only decayed away the bottommost flights
it seemed. Just after he and Justin
split up, he heard a scream. He ran
toward it. He saw Bavandersloth
cornering a family. He held out his
hand. He thought. Was there any way he could hit Bavandersloth
without killing the family?
Cody
looked to his side. “Sparky, do you
think you can get Bavandersloth without harming those people?”
Sparky
nodded.
“Alright
then. Sick ‘im, boy.”
Sparky
ran at Bavandersloth, barking.
Bavandersloth turned around.
Sparky tackled him and blew a bit of fire from his mouth on him. Bavandersloth’s eyes widened. He punched the hellhound, who flew off of him
with a yelp. Bavandersloth rolled to try
to put the flame out. Cody called Sparky
back and stretched out his hand. He shot
at Bavandersloth’s legs. Bavandersloth
raised his shield. The blast put a crack
in the hotel floor. Cody’s eyes
widened. He kneeled and whispered a plan
to Sparky. Sparky nodded and ran
downstairs.
Cody
blasted the ground below Bavandersloth, making him fall through the floor. Cody ran to the hole he’d created. He looked down. Bavandersloth’s shield had broken, and he lay
two floors below Cody. Cody shot
downward, but Bavandersloth rolled out of the way. Cody’s eyes widened. He ran downstairs, got sparky, and ran down
more stairs. By the time he reached the
next floor down, Bavandersloth was nowhere in sight.
*****
Justin
walked through the hotel gathering people and helping them down the broken
staircase. Bavandersloth had not only
made the stairs decay away, but also much of the floor. Liches could make things decay according to
any pattern they liked. Bavandersloth
had taken advantage of this, and created a pit of two-foot long spikes below
every staircase. It was long enough to
prevent emergency responders from using ladders to help people down from it.
Justin
reached the edge of the staircase with a family in tow. He turned around. He put out his arms. The family stared at him. “My arms are out. Hand the baby to me.”
The
mother nodded and set her infant down on Justin’s arms inside the black
cloud. Justin held the baby close. She was asleep. Justin activated his shield and jumped
down. The impact with the spikes made
his shield fainter for a split second, but the shield withstood it. Justin rolled his shield across the spikes
where a fireman waited. Justin handed
the baby to him. He turned back around
and stepped into the spike pit. The
spikes impaled his feet, but he felt no pain.
He walked to the other side and jumped up. He wasn’t able to make it up, and he fell
back down. The spikes impaled him. He stood back up. He tried the jump again. He made it.
He lifted up the toddler and helped him down in the same way he’d helped
the baby.
*****
Valthakar,
invisible, walked into the hotel. He
found a staircase; he had to admit the spike pits were a clever touch, and
jumped up. He sent a flood of souls out
to find Bavandersloth, and it wasn’t long before one did. Valthakar rushed up a dozen floors to
Bavandersloth’s location. He saw
Bavandersloth. Bavandersloth’s shield
was up. Valthakar smiled and stretched
out his hand. He aimed at
Bavandersloth’s legs.
As he ran, Valthakar’s
eyes widened. He collided with A SWAT
officer, who fell over. Bavandersloth
turned around. His eyes widened. He dashed away.
Bavandersloth
ran toward the back of the hotel. As he
ran, he summoned all of his souls.
The
whole area was clouded by a dense fog of souls, obscuring Valthakar’s vision. Bavandersloth ordered them to shout, and they
did. Valthakar covered his ears. He ran forward, but had no means of following
Bavandersloth.
*****
Cody
heard a huge crowd of people shouting on the floor below him. His eyes widened. He and Sparky ran to and down a
staircase. Cody waded into the fog of
screaming souls. He couldn’t see a
thing. He looked down at Sparky. His eyes widened. “Sparky, can you send these souls back to the
underworld?”
Sparky
shook his head. Cody frowned. He sighed.
“I don’t suppose you can see through this fog either?”
Sparky
looked down and shook his head again. He
whimpered. Cody petted Sparky. “It’s okay,” he said. Cody sighed.
*****
Bavandersloth
kept running. He couldn’t see through
his fog of souls either, but they guided him.
He ran to a staircase and went down.
He called his souls downstairs with him.
The stairwell he’d chosen ended just two floors below, so he searched
for another one.
*****
Cody
saw the cloud of souls disperse. His
eyes widened. He ran down the stairwell
nearby and found another cloud of souls.
Something
occurred to Cody. His eyes widened. He smiled.
Bavandersloth seemed to be going downstairs. Cody stepped away from the staircase and put
his hand on the rail. He made the flights
of stairs below him decay away. Bits of
rusted metal fell into the spiky pits below.
Cody smiled. He went back
upstairs. He ran around, searching for
another stairwell.
If
he made all of them decay, he would trap Bavandersloth with him in the hotel
where he could wait for his hunger to end.
They were on the forty-second floor, high enough that Bavandersloth
might not be able to safely jump down into the spikes. If he destroyed the stairs above
Bavandersloth as well, Bavandersloth wouldn’t be able to reach any humans save
the ones on the floor he wound up on. It
wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing.
*****
Bavandersloth
found another stairwell. He almost ran
out. His eyes widened. It was decayed.
Bavandersloth
stepped away from it. He closed his eyes
and thought. He put his hand to the
ground and made the floor below him decay away.
He did the same thing with the floor below that and the floor below
that. He did this for a few minutes,
stopping to eat a few people he ran across, until he was on the second floor.
There,
he found a window that led to the pool behind the hotel. It had been evacuated, and there were
emergency workers outside. Bavandersloth
smashed through the window and out into the pool area. People around looked, and then ran. Bavandersloth ran into the crowd of workers
and ate them. When there were no more in
sight, he ran into the water. The ink on
him started to fade.
DIAPP’s
ink was made of chemicals that didn’t decay, at least not in the way liches
could induce. Bavandersloth smiled. It seemed that they hadn’t been able to find
a waterproof ink with that property.
After
Bavandersloth had been in the pool for a while, the ink was gone. Bavandersloth stepped out of the pool and
dried himself off. He smiled. He was invisible again. He ran away from the hotel, setting off for
his second major destination.
*****
Agent
Lambert slammed his fist against the desk.
“We lost him?”
The
woman nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Agent
Lambert seethed. He took a few deep breaths
then sat down. He closed his eyes. If Bavandersloth was headed back into the
hotel, he’d know in a few minutes, but why would Bavandersloth waste this
opportunity? DIAPP once again had no way
of tracking him. Agent Lambert looked
down. “Just do as you were before you
got the ink on him the first time,” Agent Lambert said. The woman nodded and left. He needed to encourage their chemists to work
on a better ink. The one they had now
could be removed by chlorinated water.
As far as the realm of the magical was concerned, that didn’t count as
being able to decay, as solid masses of chlorinated water didn’t appear in the
air under normal circumstances, but it still made mishaps like this one happen.
Agent
Lambert sat back and put his feet up on his desk. He took a sip from his coffee. He called an agent. The agent ran in. “What is it?”
“How
long has it been since Bavandersloth’s rampage started?”
The
Agent looked at his watch. “Four hours,
sir.” Agent Lambert sighed. So there were two hours left.
*****
Valthakar
sent out his own army of souls to find the others and arrange that they meet on
the second floor. Valthakar stood as
they approached him. Justin looked up at
him. “What happened,” he said. “The soul said Bavandersloth--”
Valthakar
took a deep breath. “Yes. He’s gone, and DIAPP’s ink is off of him
too. All we can do is leave and wait for
him to strike.” Cody and Justin looked down. Valthakar made the wall next to him decay
away and the three left.
*****
For
the next two hours, Bavandersloth moved unpredictably enough that neither Agent
Lambert nor the other devourers pursuing him could catch him. Though his frenzy meant he couldn’t help but
stop and feed whenever prey came in sight, he was able to move from place to
place quickly enough that DIAPP wasn’t able to ink him again.
His
movements were random enough that his next destination could never be predicted
with certainty. Over time, Agent Lambert
noticed he seemed to be heading, in general, toward the downtown area.
At
different times during the next two hours, both Cody Giles and Justin Cooper
returned to their own homes under the excuse that they had to deal with some
urgent business at the portal Bavandersloth was supposed to have come through
in their version of events.
Agent
Lambert sighed as the clock passed 6:30 AM.
Bavandersloth had begun his rampage more than six hours ago, so it was
over. He sighed and sat back. No doubt he’d march back to Valthakar and
stage one final battle in which he would be defeated. Perhaps it was possible to get Bavandersloth
then? Agent Lambert sat up and thought.
*****
Valthakar
looked up at the sky as he walked. He
saw a soul approaching. He looked
up. “What is it?” he asked.
“Master
Bavandersloth is no longer in his frenzy state.”
Valthakar
nodded. “I see. What are his instructions for me?”
“Follow
me and await further instruction.
Bavandersloth isn’t done with his rampage just yet.”
Valthakar
tilted his head and squinted. “What?”
*****
Agent
Lambert stood up from his desk and went to the break room to make more
coffee. As he poured coffee into his
mug, he heard an alarm. His eyes
widened. That alarm meant that a
supernatural force was attacking the building.
Agent Lambert ran out to the hall, intending to evacuate.
*****
Bavandersloth
ripped the soul out of another DIAPP agent.
He’d been planning this since he let himself be destroyed last
month. Why pass up an opportunity to
raid DIAPP’s base while he had a plausible excuse?
Bavandersloth
stepped onto a staircase, kneelt down, and made the ground below him decay into
spikes. He ran up the stairs and made
them decay away. He turned the
corner. He was in a cubicle room. He summoned several souls and ordered them to
look around. They managed to find nine
hiding agents. Bavandersloth
smiled. Still invisible, he followed his
soul to one of the agents. Before the
man even knew he was there, Bavandersloth stuck his scythe into him, taking out
his soul. Bavandersloth followed the
soul to the next person, and then to the next.
Eventually, he reached a group of two men cowering under their
desks. Bavandersloth stood back and
thought. He had to eat one of them
first, but didn’t want to alert the other, lest they reveal that he was in the
area. Bavandersloth kneeled down. He thought of a plan. He touched one of them and severed his vocal
cord. He snatched the other one’s soul
before they realized what was going on.
The
one whose cord he’d severed banged on the desk above him. Shit.
Everyone around panicked and ran off.
Bavandersloth ate the agent and ran out of the room.
*****
Agent
Lambert gritted his teeth. The sprinklers,
which in this building were filled with DIAPP’s special ink, should have gone
off by now. Bavandersloth must have
disabled them. Agent Lambert ran
downstairs. Unlike the hotel, this
building had recourse against Bavandersloth’s spike pit trick. Then again, if Bavandersloth had guessed it
was there, he would have destroyed it. Agent
Lambert closed his eyes. Please, let it
still work.
*****
Bavandersloth
ran up to the next floor, leaving a spike pit behind him. He ran around devouring souls. He moved on to the next floor and did the
same. He kept this up until he was about
half way up the building.
*****
Agent
Lambert heard a beeper buzz as he moved downward. He pressed a button. “Attention, Agent Lambert. Judging by the set of stairs Bavandersloth
has spiked and the set of stairs he hasn’t, you’re on the same floor with as
him.”
Lambert’s
eyes widened. He took a deep breath and
clenched his fist. That meant the next
set of stairs would be spiked. Please,
let it work. Agent Lambert pressed on. There was no use going back. He just had to hope not to run into Bavandersloth. He neared the staircase. He activated the contingency for spiked
staircases, an extendable cover near the bottom of the staircase and an
extendable ramp near the top. Nothing
happened. Lambert’s eyes widened.
Lambert
felt an arm reach around his neck, choking him.
Bavandersloth uncloaked himself, but raised his cloud. He dragged Lambert backward as Lambert
squirmed.
“Don’t
bother trying to escape,” Bavandersloth said.
Bavandersloth forced Agent Lambert down, and then reduced his cloud to a
humanoid shape, one that only just covered his form, even allowing the rusty
chains that dangled from him to be exposed.
He looked down at Agent Lambert, and then up at the security camera and
then back down at Agent Lambert. He
whispered. “Guess what, I’m done with my
little frenzy. I’m in my right mind
again.”
Agent
Lambert spat on Bavandersloth. “I know.”
Bavandersloth
created a bulge in his cloud in the shape of a smile. He spoke up.
“You know a lot about us then.
You can’t possibly comprehend how wonderful it is to be allowed to roam
free in another dimension when you’ve been imprisoned for so long.”
Agent
Lambert’s eyes widened. He opened his
mouth. Bavandersloth leaned down. He used his magic to cut agent Lambert’s
vocal cord. “Ah ah ah,” he said. “No interrupting. It’s time for your agonizing death.”
Lambert
struggled. Was this it? Did Bavandersloth have him?
Suddenly,
Agent Lambert heard a voice. “I might
have something to say about that.”
Agent
Lambert looked up. He saw another black
cloud, presumably Valthakar.
Bavandersloth turned around.
Valthakar reached down and jerked Bavandersloth upward, throwing him
across the hall. He ran to Bavandersloth,
who struggled to get up. Valthakar fired
a blast of magic at Bavandersloth, putting a hole in his stomach. Bavandersloth screamed. Valthakar fired another blast, then another,
making a few more holes. With each one
Bavandersloth screeched, until the last one, where Bavandersloth went limp.
Valthakar
grabbed Bavandersloth’s body. There was
still a veil around it. Valthakar jumped
downstairs.
*****
Valthakar
and Bavandersloth turned invisible not too long afterward. They ran back to the mansion, where they
turned visible and took their human forms.
“How
long should we wait to tell the press of your return?” Valthakar asked.
“Do
it later this afternoon,” Bavandersloth said.
“Tell them that you managed to get me back after you subdued the
devourer, and that I can be interviewed by Violet Fox the next day.”
Valthakar
nodded.
*****
“Hello
everyone, and welcome to Channel 4 News at 6.
The world is reeling from yesterday’s devourer attack which is estimated
to have resulted in the deaths of seven-hundred people and caused nearly
six-hundred-million dollars in damage.
I’m here, for the first time since November, with Light-rook to comment. Thank you for coming.”
“Thank
you for having me.”
Violet wiped away a tear. “Indeed.
Now, yesterday’s attacks have been a great tragedy. Please, could you please tell us what exactly
happened yesterday?”
“First, let me express
my utmost condolences to the families of the victims. As for your question, it ultimately traces
back to a month ago, when that agency imprudently destroyed my body.” Bavandersloth looked down. “My command of magic allowed me to restore it,
or create a new one, really, in my own dimension. I did that, but in order for me to get here,
it was necessary for Orichalcum and the others to open a portal to that
dimension. Unfortunately, there’s no
way, or at least no reliable way, to filter what comes through. We took every precaution we could, but
something got through. There was no way
of predicting it.”
“Sir,
you call this other realm your own dimension, but it seems clear from previous
statements you’ve made that you’re a human.”
Bavandersloth
sighed. “True. I do come from here, I suppose.” Bavandersloth looked down. “I’m trying to decide how much to tell
you. As Orichalcum said, too much
information about magic can be a bad thing.
It’s like… it’s like I, we, feel a kinship with that world. I’ve been like this for more of my life than
I haven’t been, so it’s hard not to think of it as my home. It’s strange, I know.”
Violet
looked down. “Alright. Now, about the creature that attacked the
town, Orichalcum said they were your rivals?”
Bavandersloth
sat up and sighed. “Yes. In fact, each time one of us is born, one of
them is created there. That usually
doesn’t matter because there’s nothing for them to do there. The problem comes up whenever they come
here. It doesn’t happen often, which is
why it isn’t recorded at any point in history.
Actually, to tell the truth, it was hypothetical until today, as far as
I knew, which is why we were willing to open the portal at all without
gathering a large force of our people in case this happened. The thing was attracted to the reformation of
its partner’s body, so it was able to find the portal.”
“Some
might say that’s awfully convenient.”
Bavandersloth
sighed. “I suppose they might. I don’t really have a counter to that. All I can do is try to be honest with you.”
“I
see. When the creature attacked the man
the Angel of Death later healed, Deerward Lambert, he showed a bit of his form
and there were chains dangling from it.
Why?”
Bavandersloth
sighed. “Those are a part of him,
basically. I have them too. As a pair, our appearances match, and his is
decided by what I was like as a… well, before I was what I am now.”
“And
why chains?”
Bavandersloth
pressed his lips together. “Alright, now
this is going to be one of those big ones.”
Violet’s
eyes widened. “What?”
“I
was a slave.”
Violet’s
mouth widened. “Oh. So like, in Mexico or--”
“The
Middle East.” Bavandersloth sighed. “Think about it. I was completely destroyed and I came
back. What do you think happens when we
have heart attacks? Well, we don’t, but
the point is, what do you think happens any time we quote-unquote die?”
Violet
gasped. “Wait, so you’re…”
“I’m
eight-hundred.”
Violet’s
mouth grew still wider.
“I’m
not particularly old, a least compared to the mean. Orichalcum chose his name because he’s old
enough to be from Atlantis if it was real.
There are a few of us who lived on Earth as Plato wrote. Most of us are younger because there has been
a rush of us since the industrial revolution and human population growth. Still, measured from the mean of our ages, I’m
not all that old.”
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