The Errata were harbingers of the end, annihilating key fortifications and areas of interest before the true invasion swept in. All sane paladins feared them, but a number of stories did exist of heroes who overcame the odds to defeat them in single combat. Three at once, however, was something of a myth.
Having identified the threats, I reverted to normal sight. The strain of divine vision was worse than useless at the moment.
A horrifying reality awaited me. Frantic to escape, people screamed and shoved at one another. Now that they were longer abstract shapes and silhouettes, their panic stirred an animalistic fear in me as well.
The Erratum approaching from the center was humanoid enough to have lingered in the crowd without drawing much attention at first. Its face was so unnaturally beautiful it looked more like a decorative mask. Whorls of gold accented the ivory pallor of its skin. As the demon advanced forward it tossed aside a tattered cloak; its androgynous body was around the size of a young man’s, etched with muscle.
Mangled corpses littered the ground behind it. It licked one of its gore-drenched hands, long blue tongue swirling about with disgusting speed.
Unsurprisingly, I did not like the look of this one.
Maintaining my composure was difficult, but I had not completely wasted an entire life devoted to defying the Goetia. While rage has its place, raw instinct and force are too simple to rely on. My mind struggled at first to slip into the Reason Trance, but after a couple attempts a cold, stark clarity wiped away my useless concerns. Time slowed as all mental faculties directed themselves toward analysis.
Without my usual self-deceptive nature at the helm, I accepted how much I yearned to use my power. The sheer quantity of ambient metal and electricity in this world made my skin itch. Every waking moment I felt like a gambling addict wandering through a casino but restricted from playing any games.
I absorbed essence from the environment to complement my reserves---small trickles from every cell phone and wire, every car and streetlight and cable and fence. Not enough to cause obvious damage to any individual object, but collectively an ocean of power.
Much of it I cycled into Johnny’s body, enforcing it well past human capability. Lightning is speed and grace: a sudden, unpredictable strike. Metal is durable and sharp, capable of both reinforcing and severing. Blending them together resulted in a euphoria that frayed at the edges of my Reason Trance.
No matter how much I imbued this body, Johnny was not capable of tolerating the incoming abuse for long. People unconsciously limit their efforts to avoid tearing muscles and snapping ligaments. I intended to exceed that threshold, and my future self would regret it.
Several people remained in the vicinity, preventing me from unleashing a truly devastating assault. I would need to get close for some fine control work.
The world felt slow to my enhanced senses. The screaming too loud, the stench of blood too nauseating. I yearned to move, as if it was the answer to all of my problems.
So I did. Lightning crackled around my boots.
Flash Step.
The demon observed my rapid dash with no apparent concern beyond a slight tilt of its head.
When I was within ten paces, I gestured with my hands as if tearing something in half. A net of razor wire materialized around the demon, gleaming the light purple of refined magisteel; it hovered in the air long enough for the Erratum to blink once in surprise, then with blinding speed constricted.
Though I hoped to mince the demon into a pile of small chunks, its physical form was not so easily dismantled. Magisteel wire bit deep into flesh, drawing lines of blue ichor from every inch of exposed skin. The demon snarled as it strained against its bonds.
Since I had few opportunities to practice mixing powers, tapping into lightning to electrify the wires took a shamefully long moment. For several seconds the demon convulsed in a most satisfying manner before regaining control of itself.
Unable to overcome the net with force, the Erratum screamed in a voice like haunting music: “Cease.”
The magic constructing the net vanished as if it had never existed.
There went a full tenth of my power reserves. They would regenerate at an astonishing rate, but not infinitely. I had hoped to incapacitate this one before its companions joined our little dance.
Six seconds had passed. Enough time for the last few people to escape from our immediate area. One fatally injured man still clung to life behind the demon, but I could not hold back without risking worse casualties.
The Reason Trance helped delay feeling emotional wounds as well.
Though I never had the opportunity to experiment much with metal magic in my past life, I forced myself to perform an Abstraction.
The demon charged me this time, even quicker than my Flash Step, lashing out with one hand to cleave my skull in half. I swept my hand side-to-side, channeling the very concept of sharpness into an attack. Proficient enough at lightning magic to mentally subgesture, I layered a secondary Abstraction for speed on top of it. My world blurred at the edges from the strain.
It looked like the demon would get me first. Then an invisible Cut separated the demon’s arm from its body at the elbow mid-swing. Momentum still carried the limb into my head with enough force to make me stumble.
The Cut had continued through the demon’s arm at a slightly wonky diagonal, bisecting its body at the upper chest. The top part hit the ground a second before the greater mass of the bottom thumped next to it. Metal squealed as a car parked across the street was caught in the path of the layered Abstraction and found itself transformed into a convertible. Hopefully my Cut did not go too far into the building behind.
The Erratum snarled up at me with perfect black teeth. Streams of ichor and gray energy emerged from the separate parts of its body and began to connect them back together.
“Die,” it screamed.
The compulsion tugged at the corners of my soul, but such a pathetic attempt would never end my life.
In response, I pointed down at the demon’s head and unleashed a wave of magisteel flechettes; the small darts barely pierced through an inch of its skull, but so many small wounds studded with foreign objects would confuse its regeneration.
For good measure I took a couple steps back before kicking the demon’s head, sending that portion a good twenty paces away. The arm still attached to its body clawed up at me with desperate hate, legs thumping against the ground in a childish tantrum.
I pressed my hands together as if in prayer, then reversed them into opposite directions. Magisteel bands formed at six-inch intervals along the demon’s limbs, sharp points anchoring deep into the ground.
Incapacitated. For now. Without my undivided attention, the Erratum would pull itself back together and regain its full strength. The shackles would not hold for long.
The stench of burning flesh assailed my nostrils. An absent part of my mind noted that ichor from the demon’s dismembered arm had sprayed across my face. Hurriedly I scoured the blue blood away with my sleeve; faint wisps of smoke drifted from the stained cloth.
All in all, that entire conflict took twenty seconds. Longer than I hoped. Now its friends had arrived. They stood in the street, observing the mortal who had overpowered their peer.
The one on the left was a gray metal panther the size of a vehicle. A segmented tail whipped through the air behind it; the tip curved into a wicked point like a scorpion’s stinger.
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My power exerted minimal influence over demonsteel, though I could sense it on a more fundamental level than mere human senses. Likely the Goetia surmised the benefit of this composition outweighed the risk. Demonsteel possessed great immunity to both of my elemental powers, capable of dispersing lightning and at least as strong as my magisteel.
The other Erratum posed an even greater problem. Its physical form was near invisible, a vortex of wind mostly defined by the eddies of dirt and trash stirring about it. The vortex tapered into a vague torso with no head. It emitted a constant hum, punctuated with the occasional howl as screaming faces emerged from the vortex before being sucked right back in.
My chances did not look promising against two Errata elementally aspected to counter me. The first one must have been a test, roughly on the level of the coffee shop demon.
My heart pounded, the roar of it filling my ears. I clenched my fists.
Should I retreat? Dying while attempting to protect the people here would be a foolish sacrifice. But could Ludo Edkeis really accept that decision once the Reason Trance wore off? I always was a fool, after all.
I flipped on my divine vision to confirm the situation. Only one human signature remained in the immediate area in front of me---the fatally injured man, his soul faded and flickering. The humanoid Erratum’s soul had split into three fragments split between its body parts.
Gunshots rang out from behind me. Biehl and Davis approached in a low crouch, firing at the panther. Bullets sparked off its demonsteel hide. Useless, especially since they weren’t even made from metal. Them risking themselves for such an ineffectual attack only made them a hindrance. But it did give me an idea.
“Get back in the building,” I hissed. “Toss a gun with normal bullets out.”
They looked uncertain but still followed my command.
Tired of observing, the Errata sprang into action.
The panther’s leap carried it thirty paces forward in the blink of an eye. I released an unstable Cut before rolling to the side. The force of the demon’s impact where I had been standing a moment ago made the earth tremble. Concrete fragments sliced my cheek.
My Cut had left a mark of its own, a deep furrow along the panther’s flank. The ichor leaking out proved that only its exterior was demonsteel.
I leapt out of the way as its tail whipped at my head, the stinger tip flashing an inch in front of my eyes. One of the agents had listened well enough to toss an assault rifle out through the door. With a thought I adjusted its speed and trajectory; the moment I landed, the rifle slipped into my hands.
Imbuing magic into the rifle transformed it and its ammunition into magisteel. The velocity of the bullets should help pierce through the panther’s superior armor. Only one way to find out.
I adjusted the rifle, propping it against my shoulder and grasping the barrel with my off hand the way the officers had pointed it at me. Though it was an unfamiliar weapon, it seemed simple enough. Aim and pull the trigger.
I fired.
At first, nothing happened. Then Johnny’s memories provided an answer. I mentally disengaged the safety.
A deafening roar. The recoil thudded a steady rhythm into my shoulder. Spent casings rained out from the side of the weapon. As the bullets traveled, I added my own force behind their natural propulsion.
A series of holes stitched their way across the panther’s body and up to its head as it turned. A mist of ichor blew out the other side as the bullets penetrated through. The panther stumbled but did not fall.
I leapt out of the way from another flash of its tail.
Too late, I remembered it was not alone.
A gust of wind blasted into me from the side and knocked the rifle from my hands. The world blurred as I spun through the air at least twenty paces, narrowly avoiding being crushed against the wall of the adjacent building. Struggling to maintain the Reason Trance, I was too disoriented to right myself and land on my feet. I managed to cushion my impact against the sidewalk by tucking into a roll.
Searing pain in my neck and shoulder. I came to my feet with a groan, hot blood running down my face and chest.
At least the blast of wind put some distance between me and the Errata. The humanoid had recovered and joined the other two charging in my direction. Unfortunately for me, they seemed to have finally started cooperating.
Recover the magisteel rifle?
No. Not enough.
Lightning is, in some ways, rather simple. An electrical charge becomes so unbelievably potent that it destroys air itself, filling the void left behind with its brilliance. The Errata had placed themselves all within my line of sight, and not even an entity made from wind was altogether immune to that destructive force.
My skin tingled. The taste of metal filled my mouth as static electricity gathered in the area.
I snapped my fingers.
A streak of lightning crashed down from the heavens, followed by another, then another, until most of my reserve was exhausted. The blinding light penetrated even through my closed eyelids. The world rumbled, not quite as head-splittingly loud as expected---firing the rifle had set my ears ringing.
Bright afterimages swam in my vision. The burnt plastic smell of ozone filled the air.
No sign of the wind vortex.
The humanoid had been flung some distance away, blackened and twitching. Lightning strikes generally passed through physical bodies too swiftly to leave burns, but a sustained barrage and proximity to the demonsteel panther did the trick.
The panther itself remained on its feet but was paralyzed in place, blue-white arcs crackling along its body. It had absorbed the majority of the lightning, and despite its exterior appeared to have some sort of pseudo-organic insides. The currents would have boiled its ichor, and in my experience the electromagnetic fields generated from lightning tended to disrupt whatever manner of nervous system housed their intelligence.
The lack of the wind vortex disturbed me. It should not have been completely vaporized. I switched to my divine vision in time to sense its soul hovering directly above me.
My abused body had drained most of the enforcing magic and now refused to move. Tapping into my metal reserves, I formed a circle with my hands. A magisteel barrier materialized overhead in time to catch a flurry of windblades. Thwarted, the Erratum switched tactics. Pressure built up on top of the barrier, a steadily growing bombardment that began to bend the magisteel inward.
If I stayed in place much longer, I would be crushed. Still my body refused to budge, agony slipping through cracks in my Reason Trance. My vision blurred. I panted.
The humanoid Errata managed to heave itself into a crouch. The panther shrugged off its paralysis and took a hesitant step forward, tail swishing. They would regenerate and even adapt as the fight went on. My mortal body would only get worse.
The smart option was to flee and abandon everyone here to the Errata’s whims. Maybe if I escaped they would have no reason to slaughter anyone else. But I knew that was a cowardly hope.
I had no doubt I could escape the immediate area. The uncertainty came afterwards.
Though I had drained most of my reserves, the issue was not one of power, but control. Turning oneself into a lightning bolt to travel is one of the most advanced skills in magic. Well, not precisely. Transforming into a lightning bolt is simple. Turning back into yourself is not.
In my exhausted state, I doubted Johnny Parish would come out the other side. If the alternative was death, how much of a choice did I have?
A rhythmic pounding managed to sneak through the ringing in my ears. What was that? Music?
A black SUV swerved around the corner of a side street to my left. All traffic had been diverted from the area, so the sight of someone intentionally joining the battlefield was most unexpected.
The vehicle came to a screeching halt between me and the recovering Errata. Someone kicked the driver door open. Out hopped a middle-aged Hispanic woman in the black suit and flat cap of a chauffeur. For a second she squinted at the Errata, then she hurried to the back of the vehicle.
Whatever she was doing, I hoped she made it quick. My barrier was on the verge of collapse. I attempted to reestablish the Reason Trance to facilitate my Bolt Jump, but too many doubts and pains fought to distract me.
The woman returned. Balanced on one shoulder was an olive green tube of metal that flared out on either end. Forty inches long, with various ridges along its surface. Inside I sensed a cartridge shaped something like a pinecone with a propeller at the base.
Oh.
She dropped to one knee, facing the demonsteel panther. The Erratum prepared to leap. In a cloud of smoke the rocket launcher discharged its missile.
Either Johnny had no idea what to expect from one, or this was something special.
Upon impact, a massive inferno boomed into existence, at least twenty paces in diameter, flares of white-hot flame peeking through the roiling black cloud. An instant later came the shockwave, a perfect sphere of expanding air that blew me off my feet. Every window in the vicinity shattered. Any vehicle not already blaring its alarm joined the symphony.
I laid on my back, eyes closed, forcing myself to take deep breaths. My mind drifted in and out of consciousness. No time for falling asleep. At least the agony of my broken body gave me something to focus on.
A small hand slapped me across the face. When I failed to react, the second blow was harder.
The woman was crouched beside me, her attention flitting between me and the Errata.
Much of the panther’s demonsteel exterior had melted into streams of viscous gray. It managed to heave itself back to its feet for only a moment before collapsing again. Bits of the humanoid looked to have rained down across a mile or so of the city. Neither form was designed with fire and destruction resistance in mind.
The wind vortex. What about the wind vortex?
The woman must have noticed something of my panic. She tipped her cap at me. I read the words on her lips more than I heard them. “Two down, one gone, pendejo. Looks like the Goddess always makes me save you, no?”
I laughed, not caring how much it hurt. It was simply too absurd. Who would have ever thought I would be glad to see Darius Brand?