LUX
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He ignored the pain in his hand, the pain in his eye. He had a few toys to dull it, but mostly he just gritted his teeth and bore it. He had been a soldier since he was fifteen years old. He had taken worse hits than a knife to the eye.
The samurai girl, Akiyama, sidestepped his charge easily enough, and then increased the distance by a few more paces. She wasn't using her power; she was being cautious. She didn't know what he was capable of.
Worked for him.
Their powers were at roughly equal development, he thought, but he was still at a massive disadvantage. There was barely any light, so he was forced to use what little starlight leaked through the clouds. The screamers—or chorus, as the Composer called them—were far too weak to even manage that.
But that wasn't the real problem.
The problem was that he wasn't trying to kill her.
The Composer had strongly encouraged killing the Paladins at the first opportunity, so long as it was a “fair and honorable fight” (complete with air quotes), but he knew better. He had worked hard to get that creature to trust him, to convince it that he would be more useful without the failsafes the others had.
All screamers and singers started out as “defensive,” but if they tried to go against the Composer's wishes, even for a moment, they switched to “aggressive,” which was basically autopilot. Due to some fast talking when he was first captured, the Composer had removed—or perhaps simply never added them in the first place—the normal hypnotic blocks it put in all its creations. That meant he had free will. Mostly, anyway.
He needed to keep the Paladins alive. He needed them to find out what the Composer was up to, what its plans were. Sure, he had some idea. The bastard didn't make any effort to hide its bloodlust. But there was someone else pulling the strings here, keeping the Composer from going too crazy, and he wanted to know who. And stop them.
He wasn't in a position to stop the Composer. He didn't know who it was—men and monsters, he didn't even know its real gender. He didn't have most of the hypnotic blocks, but he still had the one that made it impossible to identify it. Whenever he met it in person, it looked different, its image twisting and writhing before his very eyes. It gave him a headache.
Akiyama dashed forward at super speed again, and he barely got his screen up in time.
He couldn't afford to be distracted. Right now, he needed to figure out how to get both of them out of this alive.
His reservoir was mostly spent. With the current level of ambient light, he could barely do more than a single screen before he had to wait for it to replenish.
Luckily, Akiyama didn't know that, and dodged to a few feet away, watching him warily. If she attacked now he wouldn't be able to stop her, but she was playing it safe.
He did have some advantages over her, though. He could give orders to the screamers, tell them where to find her and to attack. He was hesitant to do that, not least because it wasn't the direct, fine-tuned command that the Composer had. It had simply left a standing order for them to obey him, and using the link they all shared, he could issue instructions. But he couldn't take direct control, which limited his options. Orders or not, they were still stupid.
Sure, he could make the singers attack all at once, but they'd just end up killing her. But if he tried to communicate, he risked the Composer finding out. No, he needed to disengage as quickly as possible. Merely demonstrating his intelligence should be enough to set the Paladins on the right path. Probably.
Before Akiyama got the nerve to strike again, he dashed forward, making sure to keep her outside of his blind spot. He feinted with the knife, and when she instinctively raised her sword, he struck her wrist with his other hand hard enough to crack bone.
She didn't drop her weapon—she was experienced, to be sure—but her strength was greatly diminished. Her wrist probably wasn't actually broken, but it definitely hurt like hell. She wouldn't be able to use that hand for a while.
Perfect. Now he just needed to disable one of her legs. Even at super speed, she wouldn't be able to follow him on a sprained ankle. And it did need to be sprained, not broken. The screamers would get her if her injuries were too bad, and the Composer would notice if he ordered them to hold back.
“Over here! I see them!”
He glanced towards the source of the shouting and cursed. It was a vampire, about fifteen feet away, wielding what looked like a tranquilizer rifle. He couldn't see the drake's emblem well enough to identify his subculture, but there were more behind him, neutralizing the screamers with military efficiency.
This was the last thing he needed right now. If he was captured, nothing good would come of it. He was under no illusions about how the Composer felt about him. It would cheerfully kill him if he became a liability. And he was pretty sure it could take direct control of him, even without the hypnotic blocks, so it would probably make him commit suicide.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
But maybe...
Yes, he could use this to my advantage. He opened the link to the other singers, gave the order, and waited. A heartbeat later...
Day broke.
The angelweight had been quite effective, at first. Screamers and singers weren't smart enough to find the Grace bracelets, put them on, and activate them. He was, of course, but he wasn't an angel, and even if he was, Necessarius would have gotten very suspicious if they noticed that the entire horde were wearing the things.
But a solution had presented itself very quickly: The angelweight didn't stay in the air as long as they thought. It only lasted about half an hour. The effects lasted much longer, true, but it was a simple matter to administer the Grace to everyone affected when the 'sarians weren't looking, and then order them not to use their dayskins.
There was no need for that any more.
Every single infected angel initiated a daybreak at once, bathing the entire street white. Even with his hands over his closed eyes, everything was just one massive blob of white that scorched his eyes.
The vampires were far worse off. Their screams of pain momentarily drowned out even the screamers, until they fell unconscious seconds later. He wouldn't have been surprised if a few were actually killed from the shock, and he was sure a large number were permanently blinded. Well, as permanent as anything was when the toy maker was involved.
As he ran as far from Akiyama as he could, he ordered the rest of the singers to retreat as well, with the screamers protecting them. The Composer had claimed that there was a limited window in which killing a singer would cure the screamers they had turned, but he knew it wasn't telling him everything. He could feel it doing something to the screamers when they were ones he had personally turned—he just couldn't tell what. He didn't have enough experience with it yet.
A voice resounded in his mind suddenly.
He almost replied out loud since he wasn't used to the telepathy thing yet, but thankfully his mouth was too occupied singing. It was the strangest thing. It was like there was a switch in his head he could turn on and off that controlled the singing. He didn't have to think about it at all. It was just like turning on a hose.
It took him a second to figure out what it was talking about. When he did, it hit him like a ton of bricks.
The presence faded from his mind, and he had a chance to think again.
If the Composer had managed to turn a warlord, that was either very bad or game over, depending. He didn't think the Saint would ever willingly cooperate, so at least that meant they would be locked into “aggressive,” and therefore stupid. That was the worst possibility out of the way.
But there were many, many things the Composer could do with a warlord's body, resisting or not. And the Paladins hadn't made any real gains here. The captured screamers would just be another drain on their resources, and wouldn't get them any closer to finding its base.
But... he knew where its base was.
He couldn't tell them explicitly where it was. Even ignoring the fact that the Composer would kill him, it would just pack up and move locations. Probably cover its tracks better the next time around. Even though it was distracted right now, it would soon catch wind if he left a note or whatever. Not to mention that there was no guarantee the right people would get it.
If he could get close to Akiyama without her killing him... no, no the Composer would wonder why he wasn't running away, would pay more attention, and would be able to hear him tell her the secret. And then, again, everything would become moot.
Then she was in front of him.
She was mostly blind from the daybreak. She had been forced to fight her way through a couple hundred screamers—all of whom could see perfectly—and was covered in their gore. Finding any specific singer in the horde was completely impossible.
But here she was.
His first thought was that girls should not look that good drenched in blood.
Her eyes still watering, she raised her sword above her head , ready to chop him in half.
He didn't have time to think. If he knew her, she would activate her speed on the downward swing, and he would be in two pieces before he could blink. He didn't know if, with hindsight, he would have done something differently with more time to think about it. It wasn't that stupid of a move, in all honestly.
He just took a step back.
Instead of slicing him in half, the samurai's sword cut a long, deep gash in his front. He could feel his organs beginning to push themselves out of his gut, he could feel blood soaking his clothes.
And, most importantly, he could feel the Composer's gaze leave him, as it became clear he wasn't going to kill anyone.
He would never have a better chance. He ignored all the pain screaming at him, he ignored the fact that he barely had enough blood left in his body to stand. He threw himself forward, into Akiyama's stunned arms. Luckily, she was too surprised to get her sword up again. Instead she just caught him.
“The sleepers,” he managed to gurgle into her ear. “Know the way. Don't trust anyone...”
He wasn't really sure how long it took him to die. It felt like years, centuries. Oh, his body died within a few minutes. Akiyama was too good with a sword for anything else. But he... lingered for much longer. Was it just fading electrical signals in his undamaged brain? Or perhaps something else?
He guessed he'd never know.