Torture was torture was the only conclusion Drake took from it all.
The only kinds of people that could justify, dismiss or otherwise treat it as an intellectual exercise were those steeped in ignorance and naivete. When one saw it firsthand, only the truly sick could still countenance its existence.
So, it was understandable that Drake was filled with dark satisfaction each time he passed Rynnen’s handiwork.
Broken bodies of the demon-corrupted lay on the floor or in the walls like the trash they were.
Cells filled with dying people missing limbs, eyes, teeth, ears, fingers lay open. Their iron bars rent asunder.
They found the largest chamber, which was clearly where the jailers hung out when not doing their evil deeds, a good spot to open their portals.
Portal stone activated.
Howard went through first to make sure the warehouse was still safe since Rynnen was still smashing evil from the sounds echoing down the tunnels.
“You’re clear to send them through,” Howard’s voice crackled through the comms.
The prisoners went through with the strongest ones helping the weakest.
It took several portal stones and soon all that remained were the handful of prisoners without limbs.
Drake crouched down in front of young man, a kid really.
He stared, glazed eyes that saw nothing.
“Listen, guys, I’m not going to pretend to know what it’s like, but don’t lose hope. We’re getting you out of here and we’re gonna help with the… uh…” he gestured vaguely. “There’s magitech for almost everything. Hands, legs, eyes. We’ll get you all hooked up, promise. If that isn’t your thing, then we can share knowledge. I know this guy with a wooden arm. It’s a spell, moves around just like the real thing. As for the… uh… noses and ears, well, we can send you to plastic surgeons. Their work is seriously, practically indistinguishable with all the Skills.”
The rambling speech brought faint light back into a few of the demon-corrupted church’s victims.
“Rynnen, do you copy?” Blackstar said.
“I copy,” his voice crackled over the shared channel.
“We’re ready for egress. Get back here.”
“Negative, I’m in pursuit of enemy. I’m close to the church. Once I’m done I’m going to help Cal and Eron.”
“Understood. Emmione and Randy Potter first.”
Drake had to admire her dedication to treating Jayde’s codenames as seriously as a heart attack.
The two young wizards stood on both sides of a once corpulent man with only one leg, helping him hobble through.
“Dancessassin, you’re next.”
Tabitha’s cloak helped hold the young woman on her back in place.
It was a dark thought, but the lack of limbs made them a lot lighter.
So much so that Drake had no problem carrying the limbless young man in his arms, while a woman that still had her arms, if not her legs clung to his neck.
“Just hang on. Almost free,” he whispered.
“Sticksies.”
“Going.”
He stepped through the portal into the warehouse, rushing out of the circle quickly so that Blackstar could follow.
There were a lot of people swarming over them.
Someone took the young man from his hands and gently pried the woman’s arms from his neck.
The former prisoners were in good hands.
He had been in enough fights to see and feel the tell tale signs of healing spells and first aid Skills in action.
He scanned the faces.
“Hey,” he grabbed one he recognized.
One of Iria’s.
The kid scowled.
“Where’s Javier?”
“Demon scum are trying to run. We won’t let them.”
“Not our plan,” Blackstar’s hand clamped on Drake’s shoulder.
He, belatedly, realized that he was headed for the door.
“We protect these people while we wait for word on if that changes.”
“Understood,” Drake nodded.
If the demon-corrupted were fleeing the Vatican then Cal and Eron’s parts had gone according to the plan.
Now it was back to that old stand by.
“Hurry up and wait time?”
“You know how it is. We did good. Almost perfect. Let’s not screw it up by freelancing,” Blackstar said.
A grizzled old woman approached them.
Another one of Iria’s band.
“What?” Blackstar grunted.
“There was a bright flash earlier. Like a sun. It lasted for at least a few minutes. Was that you people?”
“Sorry, we were underground this whole time. No idea what that was,” Drake spared his team leader the aggravation of public interaction with a pushy sort of person.
“There was also a pillar of light, it looked like it came straight out of St. Peter’s.”
“Again… underground,” he gave his best smile, then remember his faceplate was still dark, so he lightened it and smiled a second time.
“If it was you people, then I’d suggest you do it again. All over the Vatican,” she spat. “Better to wipe their evil off this land and start over without the demon taint.”
“Yeah, I agree. Demon taints. No good. I’ll put in a word, promise.”
She scowled, but nodded after a moment before moving away.
“From now on you handle the glad-handing crap whenever you’re on my team,” Blackstar patted him on the shoulder.
----------------------------------------
The walls around Vatican City were practical once in the days of swords and spears. Cannons made them impractical. Thus, for many hundreds of years they had served mostly as an architectural reminder of history.
The demon-corrupted church had strengthened them once again. They still weren’t effective against things like guns, artillery and airstrikes, but the latter two weren’t a practical concern.
Walls were useful against monsters that couldn’t fly. And monsters didn’t have the ability to attack from beyond visual range. Sure things like quills and acid spit caused damage, but it gave the people a safe-ish place to shoot back.
Now, walls were useless against giant monsters. The flying ones could do the obvious, while the walking ones could simply step through or over. Fortunately, such monsters always seemed to appear in the empty spaces between populated areas and someone always seemed to take care of them before they reached populated areas.
For most people the experience went like this… they’d spot the monster through a telescope, a Skill or a spell.
It’d be many miles away.
Panic was the natural reaction.
Defenses would be prepared.
People would hide.
Fathers and mothers manning the wall would kiss their children goodbye.
The monster would never arrive.
Those with the capacity to observe could only say that there was a blur and a battle with the monster ending up dead.
Some people knew.
Iria did.
She had seen the flying man once when she had been younger.
A dead giant monster miles away from the town she and Javier had been staying at the time.
They had still been crossing names off her personal list then.
A flying man dropped one of those cargo containers she had seen at the port.
Food, medicine, supplies.
Everything the townspeople had needed.
He had only stayed long enough to exchange quick words with the mayor before vanishing into the sky chased by distant booms.
Whatever he had said worked well.
The mayor had been a greedy, grasping man hoarding the best stuff for himself and trading it for certain favors if the petitioner was young and womanly enough.
Iria had been new to her class at the time, but even then she could see the shape of the grievances, feel the urge, the need to address them to reclaim in the name of those unjustly hurt.
She had been contemplating the addition of the first new name to her list, but mayor was lucky.
In one day he had turned over a new leaf.
No one went hungry.
The sick got medicine.
The young women were no longer molested.
That was the closest she had been to the flying man.
Over the years she continued to hear stories about him.
Sometimes, when she heard a distant boom, she’d scan the sky, thinking that perhaps that trail of smoke was him.
In time, she crossed off the last name on her list.
Her family was avenged.
But, she had thought, how about other families?
She roved through her old country over the years while gathering more to her band, lost more, gathered more as they addressed grievances in the name of those that couldn’t or wouldn’t do so for themselves she thought of what she’d say to the flying man if she ever had the chance.
The gatehouse had been thrown open from the inside. Just like two others at different sections of the city within a city. As far as she knew from the sporadic communication through short range walkie-talkies. Such a silly name when one thought about it.
“We should wait for them. Set up an ambush,” Javier whispered.
She chewed on his advice for a moment while they watched a trickle of the demon-corrupted stumbling out into the dark streets.
“Most of them are probably dead. Burned in Saint Peter’s Square,” he continued.
She gazed at the red glow beneath the haze of choking smoke.
The second sun had seemingly set all of the buildings near the square on fire.
“Beautiful,” she murmured.
The fires of vengeance had been lit and though she recognized her part in it would ultimately be a footnote she didn’t care.
The people of Rome had grievances with the demon-corrupted Church and she had come to give them voice and collect the price.
“This is the flying man’s business now,” he said.
“No,” she hefted her father’s old axe. The head and shaft were blackened and cracked as though it had been left in a fire. “The people demand their suffering repaid on everyone responsible,” she drew her brother’s knife.
A painful memory returned unbidden.
He had been so proud of the knife.
Always trying to take all the knife related tasks for himself whenever they had gone camping.
Always shaving the wood down to start a fire when they already had ready tinder, matches, lighters and even a small torch.
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Father had always humored brother, while mother consoled her because none of them would let her play with the axe, knife or the torch.
It felt warm in her hand. Its steel blade, black and cracked. The design of the fancy scale handle lost to the soot baked into it.
They had remained in that state no matter how hard she had worn her hands raw trying to clean it.
“Remain hidden unless I say so,” she ordered the rest of her band.
Many new faces had replaced the ones she had lost in the months-long battle against the demon-corrupted church.
Most would stay to rebuild and try to move on from the loss of husbands, wives, parents and children.
A few were like her.
She saw it with her class.
For them, for her, there was no rest while the dead screamed for vengeance.
She stepped around the corner and swung father axe one-handed.
Iria was a small woman, lean and wiry.
The axe was made to chop wood.
Its head was thicker, heavier than a true battle axe.
It smashed into the demon-corrupted’s face with the weight of a thousand tortured innocents.
Blood, bone and brain painted the side of the building.
A demon-corrupted priest, young, wide-eyed, said a prayer.
Sickening yellow light shined down on her.
She flared an aura powered by a sliver of each grievance she had collected and repaid over the years.
The priest’s faith magic failed utterly in the face of that.
He turned to run, but her aura pulled at him.
Those with magical sight saw ghostly hands, red with rage, grasp and clutch at the priest, pulling him down, down, down into where he belonged.
The priest cried out to false god before dying.
When confronted by his undeniable sins he could do nothing.
More demon-corrupted charged.
The street was narrow and they couldn’t, wouldn’t return to the walled city.
Father axe fell on a shield.
The warrior’s Skill couldn’t bear the weight.
She forced him to his knees and silenced him with brother knife.
A second warrior emptied the dregs of his magazine.
The bullets melted in her aura.
A wet glob splashed into the warrior’s face.
Followed by a tiny spark.
Javier lit the warrior’s face on fire.
She finished him with father axe.
“Fall back, Iria!” Javier had broken cover and ran toward her. “There’s an inquisitor!”
She hadn’t seen the evil hidden behind a knot of men.
All but the inquisitor’s eyes were hidden behind the recognizable helm. The symbol of his office was emblazoned on his tabard and atop his staff.
“Sinner,” the inquisitor intoned. “God sees your deeds. Repent and be saved.”
The staff glowed.
“You worship a false god and the real one,” she twisted her lips in a smile and opened her eyes wide, “if she exists, wouldn’t like what you’ve been doing behind your walls. I reject your powerless decrees! For what I serve is real! A thousand lives you’ve tortured and murdered! Ten thousand voices calling out for retribution! It is you that should repent! Though, if God exists, I pray with all my sincerity that you find nothing in the afterlife. Only the eternity of Hell that you deserve!”
“Condemnation of Flame!” the inquisitor roared.
Magical fire bathed a wide swathe around Iria, yet left the street, the buildings and even the sidewalk cafe’s tables and chairs untouched.
The edges of her shirt, her pants and even her long, black hair caught fire.
She condensed her aura, strengthening it with long memories.
“Fire?” she snarled. “You burn me? Me!” she roared.
Mark of Vengeance.
All it took to apply was unassailable knowledge of an injustice committed. The identity of the perpetrator. The grievance from someone close to the victim. Their will and desire for retribution.
Months interviewing people in the many small communities of Rome had painted a clear picture of the demon-corrupted church’s crimes.
So many people had told her of steel-clad inquisitors and their warriors descending from the Vatican to take anyone they pleased back behind the walls never to be seen again.
She had also spoken to the those that had remained true to their oaths.
Priests, nuns and others.
The scant few that had managed to escape.
They had told tales of conversion to the new ways or torture and death.
Torture and death.
There had been a lot of it hidden behind the walls.
Years of it.
The weight of those sins gave Iria strength.
Her aura pushed the inquisitor’s flames away from her.
“You’re deluded. You only think your cause is righteous. I know mine is.”
She marked each demon-corrupted through all their protections.
Not even the inquisitor was strong enough to resist.
The mark burned into their flesh.
Searing pain.
Followed by implacable weight.
She pointed father axe at the inquisitor.
“Burn under true condemnation.”
The marks flared.
The demon-corrupted screamed as flames shot out of their collars, sleeves or pant legs.
The inquisitor stood as still as a statue, raising his glowing staff he uttered a soft prayer.
The fires remained, but the men straightened.
“Damn it, Iria! Get back here!” Javier had stopped at the edge of the inquisitor’s flames.
“Stop shouting at me and help if you’re so worried!” she snapped.
Javier raised his wand to the sky and fired a droplet of oil that quickly grew into a bubble the size of a small car as it arced over the flames like catapult shot.
It splashed over the demon-corrupted further feeding the flames from Iria’s mark.
“What do we desire?” the inquisitor intoned.
All of the demon-corrupted were on fire, yet they stood.
“To fulfill God’s will!” the men replied as one.
“Then kneel and receive his blessing,” the inquisitor held a glowing hand over his men. “So long as your faith remains true. No pain shall force you from the righteous path. So long as your hunger for God’s love remains true. No temptation shall pull you from the righteous path,” he made the sign of the cross. “Do not fear evil for you walk in God’s holy light. Now. Rise. Carry out God’s will. Defeat the heretics. Cleanse the world of corruption with the light within you. Let the flames burn the world of the filth so that a new paradise may be birthed. Let our Prayer of Zeal light your wings and carry you onward!”
The demon-corrupted men charged.
A sickeningly sweet smell of bacon tickled her nose.
They were on fire.
Her aura stopped them a few feet from her.
Close enough that she could see the vessels in their eyes burst while spittle foamed in their mouths like rabid animals.
They pushed and struck ignorant of the fire on them and around them.
She gave ground with a frustrated snarl lest they pierce her aura.
Loud pops filled the narrow street.
Her band joined the battle.
Gun fire rained down from the rooftops and second floor windows.
The inquisitor stole her trick.
His Condemnation burned the bullets. Only a scant few bits of lead reached the demon-corrupted men and they were too far gone to notice the molten rain.
He raised his staff, conjuring a giant serpent of sickening yellow light.
It swept across a rooftop, snatching men and women with its fangs and tossing their torn, broken bodies to the ground.
Mage spells and bullets raked its ethereal body. When that failed to stop it, they focused their fire on the inquisitor.
Yellow light lined his armored form.
“I fight in God’s name! The heathen and the heretic shall not bring me low when His work remains!”
The giant serpent of light coiled around the inquisitor, soaking bullets.
Javier dashed across the street, clambering up on the cafe’s sign for a clear line of sight.
Two-fisted wandslinging was his specialty.
The slim wood in his left shot orbs of oil that splashed all over the serpent.
The slim wood on his right spat small fireballs.
Explosions rocked the street.
Flames covered the serpent.
Their entire world was alight.
Daylight had come to the once dark, narrow street.
The serpent writhed and roiled. Cracks appeared all over its glowing yellow scales. The unholy light leaked from within.
“It’s going to blow—”
Iria’s warning was unnecessary.
Her band took cover, ducking behind windows, chimneys and ancient air conditioning units.
Javier tried to press himself behind the sign.
Searing yellow light washed over everything with a shockwave that sent Iria tumbling a dozen feet despite her aura.
Even the rabid demon-corrupted warriors weren’t spared. Broken and battered, they were slow to their feet.
Impressively, the inquisitor remained standing within a small crater, shrouded by smoke and dust.
The yellow glow protecting him remained, though the magic shield lining his body was covered in cracks.
Javier doused the inquisitor in oil and fire.
The answering yellow beam ate the sign from beneath his feet. He managed to leap off before the effect could spread to his boots.
The effect spread virulently. It ate away at the facade and must’ve reached a load bearing wall or pillar because a large section of the two-story building collapsed, burying several demon-corrupted men.
Javier tried to run, but collapsed with a cry. He cursed at his ankle for getting twisted.
Iria’s cry pulled his attention.
As always, she came first.
He brought his wands up before even locating the threat. When he found it he realized that it wasn’t Iria in danger it was him.
The inquisitor's glowing gaze locked on him.
A hand raised.
A spell cast.
Time seemed to slow.
Javier could see the demonic visage in the shape of the incoming bolt.
Deluded fools couldn’t even see what they had become.
The corruption exuded from everything they did.
He snapped shots from his wand.
As usual.
Oil first.
Then fire.
His aim was true, but the demonic visage ate his spells.
Then, Iria was in front of him.
He relaxed.
She’d stop it.
The demonic visage met her aura and was torn to nothing.
“Iria, he’s the only threat here. We kill him and it’s over.”
“It’s never over. There will always be another.”
“Yeah, but let’s focus on what’s in front. Remember? We can’t deal with the next one if we’re not around. As in if we’re dead.”
“His protection is weakening.”
“Then we need to break it completely so you can finish it,” he reached for his walkie-talkie. “Fire on the inquisitor. Everything you’ve got.”
The remaining members of their band didn’t hesitate.
They came out of cover and rained fire on the inquisitor.
The man’s ability to take damage was impressive, Javier reluctantly admitted to himself.
Even now, the battered magic shield hadn’t broken completely.
“I am a faithful servant of the Lord. He grants me his strength to root out and purge the evil corrupting our world,” the inquisitor gasped as he swept his staff across on side of the street and his hand across the other.
Brave men and women withered to ash.
“No,” Iria whispered.
“Run now!” Javier switched his partially spent wands for fresh ones.
He charged his shots as quickly as he could manage.
It was reckless, but needs must.
A tiny orb of sealed oil streaked over Iria’s left shoulder.
One of fire zipped past her right a split-second later.
Javier’s fire wand exploded showering him with splinters and breaking a few fingers.
The orbs hit the inquisitor a moment later.
Gallons of oil.
Fire large enough to fill the street and bloom above the rooftops.
It was a tiny candle flame compared to that pillar that had erupted into the sky a little earlier, but he thought it was one of his best yet.
Iria’s aura pushed the flames away as she dived into the heart, seeking vengeance for thousands.
Brother knife flew with a flick of her wrist.
He struck true into the thin slit of the inquisitor’s helmet.
Impossibly, the man caught the handle and kept the blade from sinking beyond his eye.
The man raised his staff, but he was weakened.
Five strides.
She raised father axe and cleaved the inquisitor’s staff like it was a thin sapling.
He struck her wrist.
Father axe cracked the stones as he fell.
She kicked the inquisitor’s knee, drawing mother machete.
The inquisitor raised a steel-clad arm.
A spell on the tip of his tongue and in his palm.
Iria hacked.
The cracked and blackened blade descended with the weight of thousands of grievances.
Through the steel, the flesh, the bone.
She didn’t stop until she had reached his corrupted heart.
The inquisitor wheezed.
A wet, raspy sound emerged along with blood from the air holes of his helm.
“God… will… hear… my… pr—”
“You stopped speaking to God a long time ago, monster,” she wrenched mother machete free. “With your death, they are avenged. They are free,” she cleaved his head free from his neck.
Without the inquisitor’s zeal the remaining demon-corrupted men succumbed to their wounds.
Father axe and mother machete made doubly sure.
“Javier—”
A healer crouched over her second with glowing hands.
“I’ll be fine, twisted ankle and a few fingers are nothing. Not like the others.”
She followed his gaze to the scoured buildings on both sides of the street.
How many had fallen?
“I will account for them when the battle is over.”
“I know,” he said. “Go. We’ll be fine here. The others might need your help.”
There were yet other gatehouses and other fleeing demon-corrupted.
Her band would need her, but more importantly she couldn’t allow any to escape.
With a nod, she ran into the night.
“Enough,” Javier waved the healer off. He stood gingerly, testing his ankle. “See, I’m fine. Thank you. Go, help the others. We’ll need to move back from this position in case more come. I’ll call in the reserves to take those that can’t fight to the fall back location. Maybe get those American’s to help, eh?”
“This is our people! Our fight!”
The healer was a young woman. A mage. She was local.
He couldn’t begrudge her passion.
She had lost half her family to the New Inquisition.
Correction.
The now dead Inquisition.
“What’s the most important thing about a fight?”
She frowned up at him.
“It’s being alive after it ends. Otherwise you can’t fight again, eh?”
She regarded him skeptically before giving a curt nod and rushing off to help the others.
“Then again,” he mused, “that means we’re alive only for the next fight.”