MERETRIX
DEREK
FIVE YEARS AGO
Lizzy looked at Derek, clearly worried. “Are you sure you guys need to go? They'll be fine without you.”
She towered over both of them, at just over six feet. She had shot up faster than anyone else in their year, and looked like nothing so much as a bronze beanstalk. Those matching, bewitching golden eyes of hers glimmered with unshed tears. She was wearing the same type of plain white dress she had been wearing on the first day of middle school.
She was beautiful.
Derek smiled and did his best to reassure her. “I know they'll be fine, but we need to go, for moral reasons.”
She bit her lip. “But... it will be dangerous—”
“We'll be fine. We'll be with everyone else, and besides, we've been training. Right, Akane?”
She nodded, clutching her sword for comfort. It was still a little new. Derek had only bought it for her a month ago. But she already seemed to never want to let it go.
Lizzy grasped Akane's hand and said something in solemn Japanese. Akane looked a little confused, but nodded slowly. She still wasn't quite fluent in Japanese, but with Lizzy's help, she was getting better. For a certain definition of help, anyway. Lizzy just plain wouldn't talk to her except with Japanese.
“We'll be back,” Derek promised, and meant it. He wasn't going to die before he finally mustered up the courage to tell her how he felt.
“You better,” she said. Then she walked away and disappeared into the night.
Right. Time to focus. They were in South Outer, right next to South Gate, about a block away from their goal. It was pretty far from home, and his mom would probably kill him if she found out where he was, but it was for a good cause.
Across the street was the Monster Liberation Army, a force of vampires, demons, giants and kemos nearly a thousand strong, getting ready to march. Derek took a deep breath and walked over to the orc camp, Akane dogging his heels.
“Whoa there,” an orc said as he stopped Derek a few yards from the center of camp. He had big claws and fangs, but otherwise looked like a normal orc. In other words, like any other demon, except with nighteyes. “Where do you think you're going?”
Derek stood as tall as he could manage. “I need to speak with him.”
The orc shook his head. “This is no place for kids. Get out of here before you get hurt.”
“He'll want to talk to me,” Derek insisted. “Let me through.”
The guard sighed. “Look kid, just—”
“Obould,” a deep voice grumbled from behind him. “The kid has stones. Let him speak.”
The orc sighed again, but nodded and stepped aside, allowing Derek to see the folding camp table at the center of the army.
At the table was the man who had spoken, the one Derek had come to see. He was massive. Eight feet tall at least and built like a truck, he clearly had at least one instance of the Bigger buff, probably more. His skin was blood red, from his bulging muscles to his tired face. He was wearing jeans and a short white t-shirt, not really appropriate for the weather. He probably had some cold resistance buffs as well, or maybe he was just used to it.
His horns were what caught Derek's attention, though. Unlike the short stubs most demons had, he had massive horns, seemingly as wide as Derek's hand, curving back from the top of his head like a goat. Because of the angle, Derek doubted it would be easy to use them in a fight, but if he could, they'd gore a man in seconds.
Knight Orcus Bloodhand, founder and leader of the orcs, glared down at Derek with his pitch black nighteyes. Nearly all nighteyes were that same uniform black, of course, but they somehow seemed... deeper, and darker on him.
“What's your name, boy?”
Derek pushed aside the fear that was screaming at him to just run and never look back. “Derek Huntsman, Honored Devil.”
“Huntsman?” Orcus said. Derek could feel his voice rumbling in his bones. “The wrestler?”
“Monster slayer these days, sir,” he said.
“Hm.” Orcus eyed him warily. “How old are you, boy?”
“Thirteen, sir.”
“Hm.” He looked at Akane, before turning his gaze back to Derek. “And what is a thirteen-year-old monster slayer doing at an army formed to rescue the First Monster?”
“She doesn't deserve what she's getting,” Derek said quietly. “No one deserves that.” He met the orc's gaze again. “It's not right, and we're going to help you put a stop to it.”
“Cuss,” the guard said, in a frustrated tone. “His heart's in the right place, but this isn't the place for children. Besides, Maria will kill us both if her son gets hurt. And Lily said—”
Orcus stopped him with a raised hand, looking thoughtful. “How many people have you killed, boy?”
Derek didn't like talking about it, but he knew it was his only chance to make a positive impression. “Three, Honored Devil. Not counting monsters.”
Orcus nodded at Akane. “And your sword?”
She flinched away, so Derek answered for her. “No people, but many monsters.”
“Hm.”
The guard pinched the bridge of his nose. “Orcus...”
“They're not children, Obould,” the Power said quietly. “Lily said no children, but they're not children. They're killers, just like the rest of us, whether they like it or not. They can come with us if they wish.”
“Thank you, Honored Devil,” Derek said, trying to keep the earnestness out of his voice. “You won't regret this.”
“I honestly don't expect to, Huntsman,” he said. Then he smiled a little sadly. “You do have something of a reputation, you know.” Then he gave him a look. “Not that I'm putting you in actual danger, mind. You can observe, nothing more. Understood?”
Derek just nodded. He was used to being underestimated, and didn't hold it against him. “When will we be moving out?”
“Shortly,” Orcus promised. “We're just waiting for a few others—Sargeras and Dispater said they'd be here soon.” He turned back to the orc who had tried to stop them. “Obould. Get young Huntsman up to speed while we make our plans.” He turned back to the table, clustered with a few other demons and vampires. The kemos and giants were in another camp. Despite being united behind a common goal, they were clearly still having trouble working together.
The guard grumbled a bit, but did as he was ordered and led them away. “Make it quick. I don't have all day.”
“I just want to know who we're fighting against, that's all.”
The orc stared at him. “You... you come and force your way into an army and you don't even know who we're fighting?”
Derek suppressed his frustration. “I know who we're fighting. Malcanthet and her succubi. Who else? We wouldn't need an army this big for a few dozen crazy demons.”
Obould sniffed. “Fair enough. Belial is in there, along with his wife and daughter and maybe half their house.”
The Belians were chem-heads. Crazy and addicted to drugs, yes, but also very, very dangerous. Chems could make you fight longer and harder than your body would normally let you, and they were pumped full of pretty much all of them.
“There are also the Nessian slavers and the Satanists. We're not sure if the Beast is there, but Asmodeus definitely is.”
Derek nodded. “So the enemy are mostly vampires. Good.”
“Mostly,” he said, his tone chiding. “But we can't underestimate Malcanthet's slaves. If we try and use light against them, we'll just be making ourselves targets for their snipers.”
Derek made a mental note to keep his flashlights unused unless they had no other choice. “Okay, what else?”
“You'll stay near me,” Orcus said as he strode up. “We have teams in place to rescue the Mother Monster already. We'll be making the main push, but it's just a distraction.”
“She doesn't like being called that, you know,” a vampire standing next to him said. He was tall and thin, with long black hair and gray skin. He raised an eyebrow at Derek. “And who's this?”
“Derek Huntsman,” Orcus said with a grunt. “Derek, meet Dispater. Leader of the warblood vampires.”
“A pleasure,” Derek said with a nod.
“This is not the place for children,” Dispater said, frowning. “Orcus, they'll just get in the way. Besides, Lily said—”
“Perhaps you didn't hear me,” Orcus interrupted. His tone was amused, not hostile. “This is Derek Huntsman. That 'child' you were hoping to recruit.”
Dispater started, then looked at Derek with wide eyes. “Wait... seriously? You're the wrestler?”
“Monster slayer these days, Honored Nightstalker.”
He glanced at Akane. “And this would be... Akiyama?”
She nodded, but kept her mouth firmly shut.
Dispater nodded in approval. “Yes, maybe you should be here. You two will go far, I think. This is a good place to learn. Just stick with us. You'll be safe, but be sure to keep your eyes open and pay attention.”
“I will, sir,” Derek promised, and meant it. He was terrified, and knew that a couple of kids wouldn't be much help against crazed demons. But he had to be here. Even if only for moral support.
Another vampire, a smaller man with pale skin and dazzling violet eyes, strode up. Those weren't nighteyes. If not for the black-eyed men flanking him, Derek wouldn't have even realized he was a vampire. “Sargeras is here. Dis, give the order.”
Dispater nodded. “Of course, Noble Dragon. It is an honor.” He raised his voice. “Monster Liberation Army—march! Onward to Shendilavri!”
His order was greeted by a wordless roar of bloodlust, and the army began to march north, towards the domain of Malcanthet, Queen of the Succubi.
It didn't take long, even with such a massive group. Her 'scraper was only a block away, and the group didn't have to worry about the supply trains and so on that would have slowed larger armies. They surrounded the building with smooth efficiency, despite the fact that it took up the entire block. Orcus and the other warlords—and Akane and Derek—took the west side, the side with the entrance. It took about twenty minutes, but eventually everyone was in position.
“MALCANTHET!” Orcus roared, loud enough to rattle nearby windows. Derek nearly wet himself. This was the man he had walked up to and demanded accept him?
“MALCANTHET!” Orcus cried again. “We know you're in there!”
A window on the third floor opened. It was a very large portrait window, and the demon girl who poked her head out looked like she deserved to be in a model catalog. Perfect white skin, delicately curved horns, and eyes a rosy red. Even thirty feet away, she was dazzling. Her features were accentuated by a few abstract tribal tattoos.
“Orcus?” she called, stifling a fake yawn. “Is that you? What are you yelling about?”
“Don't play dumb!” he called back. “Release your prisoners, or we will come in and take them.”
“Oh?” A slow smile spread over her face. “You're here for dear old Mother, then?” She grinned, and her fangs glimmered in the dim light of the streetlamp. “I don't think she wants to leave any more.”
Derek swallowed. Was it already too late? Had the succubi already broken her?
“Bloody hell,” Obould cursed under his breath.
“She's lying,” Dispater said firmly. “Don't worry.”
Derek didn't share his confidence, but he didn't say anything. This just needed to be ended, period, and if the slaves could be saved then it was a bonus.
Orcus clearly agreed. “You have ten seconds!” he roared. “After that, we're coming in! TEN!”
Malcanthet narrowed her eyes and stepped away from the window.
“NINE!”
Metal bars slammed into place—not just over the one, but all the windows. In seconds, the place was a fortress.
“EIGHT!”
Around Derek, everyone started readying their weapons. The warbloods and hellions checked their ammo, the Draculas pulled out their knives, and the Nosferatu fell into fighting crouches. Akane unsheathed her sword, preparing to charge.
“SEVEN!”
Derek saw something scaling the building's south and north faces.
“SIX!”
Kemos. Spies and saboteurs. Of course. This was all a distraction. The real purpose was to give everyone else a chance to get into place.
“FIVE!”
Derek saw them place something on a few windows. Bombs, probably, but what good would they do that high? Most of the army couldn't climb like that.
“FOUR!”
A few more shapes appeared on the roof, readying rappelling lines.
“THREE!”
Some of the thinner windows opened as arrow slits, and Nessian snipers prepared to fire.
“TWO!”
The entire army was coiled like a spring.
“ONE!”
Everything happened at once.
About a third of the windows exploded messily, setting fire to the rooms behind them. At the same time, a few select windows, farther from the others, exploded without fire, and the spy-demons began rappelling down to those.
The army leaped forward at the explosions as if shot from a gun, enveloping the building like a flood. Everyone with the claws to do so began scrambling up the walls, struggling for purchase on a 'scraper never designed to be climbed. Slaves and slavers popped out of windows to drop boiling liquids or just open fire on the crowd below, but the army's own snipers took care of them pretty well.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Derek and Akane were in the back now, with most of the warlords. Most of them had the glint of bloodlust in their eyes, but they were more valuable in the back, giving orders, than wading into the thick of battle.
“Assassins on the left,” Dispater reported in a bored tone. Even back here, the sound of gunfire was so loud Derek could barely hear him. The assassins he had spotted—Belians, by the look of it—had most likely been trying to take advantage of that to sneak up unnoticed.
“They're Belians,” Obould said. “If we wait, they'll probably trip over their own feet and kill themselves.”
There were only three of them, clad in dirty rags and clearly hopped up on chems. Their breathing was ragged and their gazes unfocused. They could barely even run in a straight line.
“Akane and I will handle them,” Derek said with more confidence than he felt. “Be right back.”
He wasn't sure if the warlords let them go because they thought they could handle themselves, or if they were just too surprised to stop them, but in the end it didn't matter. They were gone before anyone said a word.
They closed the distance. The lead Belian just grinned at Derek with broken teeth. “This is no place for children, little boy. We can smell your fear.”
He was afraid. Fighting adults was scary enough, but fighting someone built for intimidation and killing was something else entirely. Derek knew without a shadow of a doubt that any one of these men could kill both of them easily, without any mercy or hesitation.
Belians were monsters. That was the entire point, really. They abandoned any shred of morality to the sweet freedom of drugs and bloodshed. Sure, they had leaders—Belial, his wife Naome, and their daughter Fierna—but they didn't really lead so much as run at the head of the mob.
Derek's mind froze, fear keeping him from thinking straight.
But his body kept moving.
It hadn't been that long ago that he had burned that into his muscles, forced them to fight even when the rest of him was screaming in terror. His body had only frozen up on him once in his life... but a bright young girl had her knee shattered by a baseball bat as a result.
Speaking of knees...
Derek was thirteen and his opponents at least twenty, so they were nearly twice his size, not even counting all their combat toys. They underestimated him greatly, but not enough to even the scales.
So to tip the battle in his favor, he went for their knees.
No matter how many muscle buffs and skin enhancements you got, no matter how many chems you pumped yourself full of, you couldn't change the fact that knees were designed to bend. That was just what they did. So if you wanted to bring someone to the ground, you didn't try to break the knee. You just tried to make it bend.
Derek kicked the lead Belian as hard as he could in the back of his knee, and he fell to the cold concrete in surprise. Before he knew what was happening, Akane lunged forward and skewered his heart with her blade, running him through with a single stroke.
It was hard to tell who looked more surprised, Akane or the Belian. It didn't matter—after a moment, he gurgled, blood bubbling from his mouth, and she hurriedly withdrew her sword.
The other two howled in rage and rushed them. Whether they realized a couple of kids wouldn't be able to take them in a fair fight or if they were just too angry to care, Derek didn't know.
He shoved Akane to the right while he dodged left, and the Belians missed grabbing us by inches. That also put him in the perfect position to strike at their knees again. He took one down, but Akane didn't stab him, so Derek grabbed him by the hair and slammed his head into the concrete again and again until he stopped moving.
That was the trick when dealing with chem-heads: Never stop moving. It confused them. He looked around the last one...
He was flat on the ground already, his ankles bleeding and multiple holes in his back. Derek watched as Akane stabbed him again... then again... then again, weeping the entire time.
He should have stopped her, but he couldn't move. What if she turned her sword on him? What if more Belians came out of the shadows? What if the succubi had sleepers in their army? Now that the battle was over and his life wasn't directly in danger, his mind took control again. But he was too terrified to so much as twitch. What kind of man got paralyzed with fear? He looked back towards Orcus and the other warlords, hoping to get some encouragement...
And saw Asmodeus and his Nessians attacking.
The Nessians were vampires, operating out of Nessus, and slavers. They kidnapped children off the street and sold them to Malcanthet or the fey. They cared nothing for the suffering of others, only the weight of their wallets.
Asmodeus was the worst of them. He was over six feet, with a sharp face and blood red skin. He was dressed in a fine coat and wielding a pair of wickedly curved short swords, which seemed designed to cause as much suffering as possible before the kill.
The warlords were fighting back valiantly, but they had been caught by surprise, and were outnumbered. It looked like the Slave King had brought half his kith with him.
Derek saw him knock the strange-eyed vampire to the ground and step on his chest, swords ready. “We're vampires, old friend,” he said mockingly. “Everything must be paid in blood.”
It was the look on his face that shocked Derek. It wasn't a look of terror, or determination or professional detachment. It was a look of joy, and bloodlust. He was going to kill this man for no better reason than to satisfy his own selfish desires.
Life was a precious thing. Derek knew that better than most. It was fleeting, ephemeral, and always beautiful, even when it wasn't. You couldn't just crush it for no good reason.
It wasn't right.
“Hey, Ass-Man!”
Asmodeus Slave King, Noble of the Nessians and Master of Nessus, turned in his direction, a look of mild surprise on his face.
Derek threw his shoe at him.
It was all he had on hand, but it didn't matter. He was a warlord. It wouldn't have changed anything if Derek had thrown a live grenade instead.
The shoe bonked him on the head lightly, and he growled in anger, abandoning his target to stalk Derek instead.
Which was all the distraction the Nosferatu needed.
He barreled into the Nessian at full speed, without any battle cry to give him away. He still looked mostly human, except his hands were replaced with massive claws dripping with poison. Still eerily silent, he scratched at Asmodeus everywhere he could reach.
The Noble, however, was not silent. He screamed in pain and fury, striking the Nosferatu again and again with the hilts of his swords—the only part he could use at that angle. The brave vampire didn't let up, and took the blows without complaint. He just kept drawing blood, getting more and more poison into the slaver's system.
Eventually, Asmodeus managed to get his knee between himself and the Nosferatu, and flung his opponent away. He stood, ready to go on the offensive—
And dropped to the ground, screaming in agony, as the poison finally began to take effect.
The other Nessians abandoned their own battles and rushed over. They gripped their leader tight and carried him away, him screaming the entire time.
“Well done, Hal,” the strange-eyed vampire said as he rose and dusted himself off. “You too, Huntsman.” He chuckled. “I don't think anyone tried that before.”
Derek nodded his head as the vampire handed him back his shoe. He couldn't think of anything to say. Was he shaking?
The man picked up the swords Asmodeus had dropped, eyeing them warily. “Not really my style...” He glanced at the Nosferatu. “Doesn't your brother use swords?” He presented them to the silent vampire, hilts first. “Consider them a gift.”
He took them graciously, then backed away and nearly ran towards the battle.
The strange vampire chuckled. “Nosferatu are always interesting. I do hope he survives.” He frowned at Derek as he put his shoe back on—no, he frowned at something behind him. “Is your Akane okay?”
Derek turned to see her standing there, covered in blood spatters and clutching her sword. Her eyes were wide, and Derek wasn't entirely sure she was breathing.
She was staring at the Belian she had killed, the second one, the one she had stabbed repeatedly.
“Akane? You all right?”
Her gaze jerked to him. “No. No. No. No...”
“Okay.” He held up my hands to stop her. “Okay. You're not all right. I get it. What's wrong? Specifically?” He had a pretty good idea, of course. Killing was never easy. At least, not for sane people. It was actually a good sign that she was freaking out this much, but this was not a good time for it.
“I...” She swallowed and started again. “I killed somebody. Two of them. What does that make me? I'm no different than them.”
“Yes you are,” Derek said soothingly. “They were murderers. You were defending yourself and others.”
“What's the difference? Is there a difference?” She shook her head violently. “No, there isn't. It's like my mom always said. Killing is killing, and it's wrong.”
“Akane,” Derek said. He put his hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look at him instead of the corpse. “There is a difference. Trust me, this was necessary.”
She looked at him, nearly crying. “But, I don't know—”
“Trust me, Akane,” he said firmly. “That's an order.”
Something changed in her. Something... clicked into place. She stopped sniffling, and wiped away her tears. Her shoulders no longer trembled under his hands. She looked him in the eye, and adjusted the blue ribbon in her hair slightly.
“Yes, sir,” she said, and her voice only barely quavered. “I'm with you.”
Derek nodded and turned back to the others.
Most of the warlords weren't paying attention to the two of them. They were too busy licking their wounds and shouting into their phones, demanding to know how the Nessians got past the line. The strange purple-eyed vampire was chatting with Orcus, and gestured to Derek. The giant orc smiled in his direction and gave him an approving nod.
After a few minutes, most of the warlords dispersed. There was still a battle going on, and as the chaos increased, they needed to be able to actually shout at their men in person to get their orders across. Not to mention that splitting up and fading into the army would make things harder for any more assassins.
The only ones who remained behind were Orcus, Obould, Dispater, and a few of Dispater's elite warbloods. Mostly, everyone just stood around barking orders into radios and phones. There wasn't much for Derek and Akane to do.
About an hour after the Nessian attack, Obould closed his phone with a snap. “Front door is finally breached. But Shendilavri is a fortress, and the Malcatari know how to take advantage. We're having trouble just getting up the stairs.”
“We just need to rescue the prisoners, Ob,” Orcus said. “After that, we can turn this into a long-term siege.”
“They're not going to be easy to find,” Dispater said. He sounded halfway between worried and cautious. “Or to get out. Have your scouts found anything useful?”
“No,” Orcus said, grunting in annoyance. “They're having too much trouble moving around inside. The Draculas are having a little more luck, though not much.”
“Well, let me know,” Dispater said. “I want to get our men out of harm's way as quickly as possible.”
Malcanthet had a way of suborning people, of breaking their minds and forcing their allegiance. Derek didn't know the details. He didn't want to know the details. But she could create sleeper agents who acted perfectly normal until a predetermined situation occurred.
It was impossible to know what exactly set him off. Maybe it was something Dispater said, maybe there was a signal they all missed, or maybe it was just the right moment, like a time bomb going off.
But one of the Iron Duke's warblood bodyguards suddenly pointed his gun at his boss and pulled the trigger.
It was pure luck, really. Derek just happened to be looking at the bodyguards at the time, wondering if he should get a gun. Even though he realized what was going on the second the vampire brought his weapon up, he barely moved in time.
Derek tackled Dispater as hard as he could, throwing him out of the line of fire as his bodyguard emptied an entire extended magazine at the spot he had occupied just a moment before.
It took the other two warbloods a couple seconds to get their own guns out, long enough for the traitor to start to reload. He didn't get a chance to fire again, though. His erstwhile compatriots tore him to pieces first.
Derek swallowed. “You all right, Honored Nightstalker?”
Dispater was clearly terrified—not that Derek could blame him, he wasn't feeling much better—but he wasn't looking at Derek, or even the corpse of his bodyguard. He was staring at something else.
Orcus had been standing behind him.
The massive orc was on his back, laying in an ever-widening pool of blood and gore. He was already dead, that much was clear. What was left of his chest wasn't moving and the rest of his body was barely twitching with the last dregs of life. Even his eyes weren't so much as blinking.
Orcus was probably bulletproof, or at least heavily bullet-resistant, but Dispater had always made sure to arm his elites with the exact kind of rounds necessary for overcoming buffs like that. The bullets had torn through him like wet tissue paper.
Obould was crouching over the corpse, staring as if he couldn't believe his eyes. Very, very slowly, he reached out to touch his friend's face, and started weeping.
Derek left him alone. Let him have his time to grieve.
Derek turned back to Dispater. “Your orders?”
But he was shivering. “That's not... that's not...”
Derek frowned at his men. “Can you help him up?”
They nodded and moved forward, but the second they grabbed his arms, Dispater started screaming and flailing. The men leaped backwards.
Right. So Dispater was down for the count. Derek had watched enough war movies to know that left them with only one option.
“Obould,” he said, turning back to the smaller orc. He didn't answer. “Obould.” He just kept staring at the corpse.
Silver and gold... they didn't have time for this. Orcus' phone was already buzzing with subordinates asking for orders.
Derek slapped Obould as hard as he could across the face.
He jumped up, more surprised than angry. “What the hell was that for!?”
“Honored Power, what are your orders?”
He blinked. “What?”
“You are the Power of the orcs now, Knight Obould. What are your orders?” Derek held out the phone, still vibrating.
He looked at it, then at Derek, then nodded very slowly and took the phone and answered it.
“Grom? No, it's Obould. I'll explain later. How's the assault? Good. Move to a holding pattern. You're the distractions, don't get yourselves killed.” He hung up and dialed another number quickly. “Garona. No, no, he's... incapacitated. What's the word on the infiltration?”
Good. He seemed to be adapting to the role quickly enough. Derek turned to Akane.
“Keep him safe,” he said, and she nodded. “I'm going to see if I can help Dispater.”
Between himself and both bodyguards, they did eventually manage to coax Dispater into a nearby secluded storefront, which he seemed to find comforting. He kept babbling about “eyes in the sky” and how they couldn't find them inside, so they left him alone. Both warbloods remained on watch outside, but he wouldn't let them in. He had Derek's phone number on speed dial, and he swore up and down that he would call if they did anything funny. Derek was pretty sure they weren't sleepers. They would have been activated by now if they were. But that wasn't really something you could explain to someone in the middle of a panic attack.
About five minutes later, after Derek had walked back to Obould and Akane, his phone started to ring, surprising him.
It wasn't his normal ring, either. It was just a series of five beeps, then a pause, then five beeps again. He answered it hesitantly.
“Hello?”
“Derek? This is MC.”
He blinked. Very odd. He hadn't expected to hear from her again after the rat thing. “Uh... right. Hello. What can I help you with?”
“You're at Whorestown, right? The succubus lair?”
“Yeah, I'm in the back with... the orc Power. What's going on?”
“I need to talk to him. Right now.”
Derek glanced over. Obould was still on the phone, barking out orders. “He's busy right now. Just tell me what you need.”
She sighed in frustration. “I just need to know if they got their 'Mother' out.”
“Not yet,” Derek said. “I'll let you know the second they find her, okay?”
She sighed again. “Yes, all right.”
“But Derek, she's out.”
Derek looked up to see Akane blinking at him. He frowned. “What?”
“They got her out,” she said. “They're just having trouble finding the other prisoners. Apparently Malcanthet had her somewhere separate.”
“Wait, did I hear that right?” MC said in his ear. “Let me talk to the Power. He needs to hear this.”
It was Derek's turn to sigh this time. “Fine.”
Obould was still on the phone, but he put it down when Derek walked up. “What?”
“MC's on the phone,” Derek explained, handing him his cell. “Something about the captives.”
He frowned. “MC? That 'sarian hacker?”
More like communications specialist, but Derek didn't feel like arguing the point. “Yes. She says it's urgent.”
He took the phone. “Be quick.” He blinked. “What? Yes, we got her out.” Another pause. “Wait. Wait, what?” He shook his head emphatically. “No. Look lady, we're not part of Necessarius. We don't take orders from you.”
There was a roar overhead, behind them. It wasn't an animal roar, it was the deep and powerful thrum of an engine. Derek glanced back. There weren't any shuttles due until noon. What could it be?
Jets. Three of them, actually, painted black with a horizontal red stripe. They looked like they were coming in fast, but even Derek's extremely limited knowledge of aircraft told him that wasn't right. They were actually flying as slowly as possible, to maximize the amount of time the target was in their sight.
“Bombing run,” Derek whispered. “Obould! Bombing run!”
He stared at the jets, and Derek was afraid he would freeze again. But he recovered his wits in time and started yelling into his own phone for everyone to withdraw.
They did, as fast as they could, rushing away from the 'scraper like an outgoing tide.
Seconds later, a missile hit the center of the building, exploding in a fiery mess of glass and concrete. Derek could see bodies, mostly on fire, falling to the streets below, but little else.
Then another missile struck from the south, aiming towards the top of the skyscraper.
Then another one from the north, and another one from the east. All of these were aimed at the ground levels, which were now completely abandoned by the Monster Liberation Army.
The eighty-story tall 'scraper began to crumple to the ground, seemingly in slow motion. Dust and ash billowed everywhere until Derek could barely tell what was going on. He still saw the vague shape of the building slam into the wall of shorter structures that surrounded it to the south-west, keeping it from collapsing all the way to the street. But he could feel the building groaning, its weight straining to bring it closer to the ground.
A Necessarian bomber came in a few minutes later to drop a few more payloads on the foundation, just in case some rats fled to the sewers. The resulting shockwaves finally caused the 'scraper to finish its tumble, slamming into the street and shattering the concrete in every direction. Luckily everyone had already evacuated by then, urged on by Obould and the other warlords.
It wasn't until later that they found out Malcanthet had escaped after all. She had fled into the sewers the moment the army showed up, minutes after her little speech. She was long gone, and Butler had killed at least twenty prisoners—more, if you counted the brainwashed slaves—for nothing.
There were positives, however. Belial was killed. His daughter, Fierna, escaped, but did not turn up again, leaving the chem-heads leaderless. The Satanists were decimated, though their Beast survived. Lizzy came running into the hospital room straight from the shower when she heard the news. She had dried off a little, but not much. It was a nice bonus at the end of the day.
That was the legendary Battle of Shendilavri. For all the pain and bloodshed, for the broken buildings, still lying fallow in Rivenheart, people only remembered one thing. They only whispered that if even the Mother Monster could be kidnapped and tortured, then that could only mean one thing. Even for all of Butler's reforms and peacekeepers and alliances, there was only one thing that was true:
No one was safe in Domina City.