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Ch 23, A Greater Love

The talisman’s influence evaporated when the light went out. My limbs suddenly fatigued and my injuries intensified. I leaned against the wall, grimacing through the pain radiating out from the numerous fresh cuts covering my body.

“Leo, help!” I called out frantically.

He didn't answer, confirming my worst fears. Something had just shut me down. I was alone and powerless in the face of an unknown dark Aether.

The very air grew unnaturally dense, and a pressure built around my ears. Everything felt wrong. I fought to regain control of my facilities and keep the fear at bay. Deep breath in, slow exhale out.

Think John, I coaxed myself, What next?

For the briefest moment, I turned back to the door at the top of the stairs. Then, I recalled my vision of the girl.

Annabell was down there, alone, with at least half a dozen members of the Order, and I knew exactly what they were going do to her. It didn't matter how I felt, or what might happen to me next. I was all that child had. If there was a chance I could get her out, I had to try.

I pushed off the wall, gripped my nightstick tight, and began my slow descent down the spiraling stone steps. I blocked out everything as I went, thinking only of what I needed to do. Fight, win. After about the sixth rotation around the spiral, I finally reached the bottom. I stepped out of the stairwell...

And directly into hell.

It was an old wine cellar, retrofitted to store bodies instead of bottles. All along the brick walls were bolted heavy chains and sadistic racks of various assortments with suspicious dark stains splattered across the floor beneath them. Set about the room facing the columns of manicales and restraints were comfortable leather armchairs, positioned to invite spectators to enjoy the suffering that took place there. Between the seats stood tables laden with refreshments, or else blades and whips like a sick luxurious courtesy.

Though the chains were blissfully empty, I counted eight people inside the room as I entered. Two wore Acolyte leather jackets. Others were dressed in expensive suits, sipping from brandy glasses and eyeing me unconcernedly. There was only one woman among them, a blond in a black dress sitting in the corner furthest from the stairs, her eyes glazed over with the tell of an opiate high.

As perverse as the scene was, the worst of it was also the hardest to comprehend.

Directly across from the cellar entrance stood a giant black stone pyramid made of roughly hewn transparent obsidian. It stuck straight out of the ground as though it had sprouted from the earth's crust. The cellar’s floor was broken and shifted at its base, and the pyramid’s point pierced the stone ceiling above. It gave the impression of a natural formation, though I doubted anything in nature could feel quite so wrong.

Even without the talisman’s power, I could sense malignant forces at work within the monument. Its mere presence was enough to fill me with dread. As I looked upon the eerie pyramid, the black pigment swirled like smoke inside the glassy stone.

Gambal stood by the pyramid watching me with a curious expression. On the ground next to him sat a large dog kennel, with Annabell curled up inside.

She was alive, for now, pressed against the back of the cage and hiding her face from the hellish nightmare around her.

My worn-out body heated with anger and disgust. I faced off against the assembly of psychopaths, knowing full well I was in no condition to fight. Still, I wasnt going to give up now... My best bet was to bluff and pray.

Time to put on a show.

I rolled my shoulders back and strolled into the room, lazily twirling the nightstick between my fingers. I came upon a table in my path, grabbed the edge, and flipped it across the room to clear my way to Gamble.

He watched without so much as blinking.

“I’ve taken the train yard,” I said, trying my best to inject confidence into my voice. “Your detectives are dead, and your Dark Ones are gone. It's over. Give me the girl, and I’ll let you live.”

My bravado didn't exactly have the effect I'd hoped. Instead of looking defeated, or even concerned, every one of the bastards started laughing.

Gambal chuckled as he took a drink from his glass and accepted a cigar from one of his compatriots. He allowed the other to light it for him before he replied.

“No,” he said simply.

I glanced along the room as the rest of the attendees slowly started to stand and adjust themselves, surrounding me. In the back corner, the blond female watched from her seat, disinterested.

“You see, Knightstick,” Gambal chortled, “you are wrong on several counts. As we speak a detachment of officers are arresting former Chief McKinney and his small crew of corrupt officers for kidnapping those poor, poor souls. It was the valiant efforts of Detective Ryan that uncovered their evil schemes and single-handedly rescued them before he was brutally murdered.” He smiled through the cigar smoke.

I fought to stop my arms from shaking as blood dripped down my sleeves. My knees trembled and I did my best to keep them steady.

“They will go to prison, more Dark Ones will rise, and we will resume our business with no one the wiser,” Gambal said. “And as for your threats,” he turned to look at the pyramid over his shoulder. “I have it on good authority, you are less than dangerous at the moment.”

He was calling my bluff.

Shit.

An unspoken signal was given and the Order pounced. I knew my chances were bleak, but that didn’t mean I was going to make it easy for them. Even without powers, I was still a lawman, and the nightstick was a tool of my trade for a reason.

I heard the first man rush from behind and side-stepped, swiping the baton back across his knee and dropping him with a single blow.

The next attack came from the left. My guard was already up and I caught his fist across my arm, blunting the worst of it. I countered, striking his forearm with the stick, then back across the side of his head. Down he went with his friend.

My wounds were already taking a toll and my breathing became labored. Still, I managed to stay on my feet as two more lunged.

One attacked my kidneys while the other went for my head. I took the body shot and pivoted, striking him atop his skull while trying to dodge the other. That's when my luck ran out. I moved too slowly, and the second man’s fist collided with my face.

Stars burst in front of my eyes and I staggered, falling to my knees. Someone kicked my back and I dropped to all fours. The nightstick fell from my hands and rolled across the floor before I could reach it. That’s when the hoard descended.

I curled up on the cold ground as they viciously pummeled, and stomped my body. After about the fourth blow to the head, everything started getting hazy. I couldn't make heads or tails out of what was happening anymore. All I knew was that everything hurt. A lot.

I lost track of time as I was bludgeoned. Death seemed certain. I started to fade into oblivion when, for some reason, they stopped.

I lay battered and bleeding on the floor, wheezing through cracked ribs and a busted nose. The Order’s members milled about, cackling and jeering as they praised each other. I heard the clinking of glasses and the clatter of knives taken off metal tables. Watching through swollen eyelids, I saw the men nearest me rolling up their sleeves in preparation...

I tried to get up, but couldn’t muster the strength. Two men reached down and grabbed my arms. They lifted me and held my limp body between them as they stripped off my mask and unbuttoned my coat.

While they exposed me, the ringing in my ears lessened, and my vision cleared slightly. I started to make sense of what they were saying to each other.

“- start with his face.” one man said.

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“No, lay him out on the rack first,” said another.

“We have the kid,” a third added gleefully, “we should make him watch. Then we can string him up and play.”

I heard more footsteps and lifted my groggy head in time to see Gambal approach. “The master wants him dead without delay,” he interjected.

Several of the men groaned in disappointment.

Gambal knocked off my hat and grabbed a fist full of my hair, pulling my head back as he lifted a knife to my throat.

“This will end quicker than you deserve,” he said. “What a pity you won't live to see what happens to the girl... Goodbye harbinger.”

The blade bit into my flesh and blood trickled down my neck. I could feel his arm tense as he readied to draw it across my jugular.

Then, a chair shuffled from a corner of the room. “No more,” came a woman’s quiet voice.

Gambal stopped and looked over my shoulder, watching something as he held the knife to my neck.

“Katherine, what are you doing with that?” He said irritably. “Give it here.”

“No more,” she said, barely above a whisper.

“Give me the stick woman!” He shouted.

“No more,” she repeated again. “No more, no more!” I heard her walking closer as she spoke, growing louder and louder with each recitation.

Gambal let go of my hair and my head slumped forward.

“You do know what will happen to you next, don’t you dear?” Gambal spat.

“No more!” Kathrine screamed, her words reverberating unnaturally off the walls. The sound was unnerving. It echoed with the deeper base of another voice overlapping her own.

There was a sudden scuffling and more shouting behind me. The men holding me abruptly let go and I hit the ground with a thud. I rolled over with what little strength I had left in time to see my nightstick whirling overhead, knocking down several of my captors.

Through bleary eyes I watched the baton whip through the air and back into the outstretched hands of the blond woman, Katherine. As it landed in her palm the shaft erupted in ghostly azure flames.

I watched in amazement as her eyes transformed to a familiar storm-cloud gray, and her petite frame shrouded in the Aetheric blue outline of a man's broad shoulders.

I looked back to see Gambal’s stuned face.

“No more torture,” Katherine bellowed in that same two-toned voice, “no more rape! No more cutting my boy! My baby boy!” She slowly advanced on Gamabal. The others scrambled to their feet and fled from her, while he backed away in confusion.

“No more bargains,” Kathrien howled, “And no. More. Fear!’

She rushed Gambal and he covered his face with his arms. But rather than strike him, Katherine ran straight for the pyramid and struck it as hard as she could with the baton.

The effect was devastating.

As the nightstick made impact, it set off a reaction like a small bomb, cracking the black stone with a deafening boom. A shock wave tore through the cellar, lifting us all bodily from the floor and throwing us across the room.

I slammed into the wall near the stairwell and slumped to the floor, barely staying conscious. After several seconds, I tried to sit up. I shook my head, my ears ringing loudly as I fought against the spinning room until it eventually slowed. My vision settled and I looked out at the aftermath of the explosion.

Dust and chunks of brick were sprinkling down from the ceiling amid flickering broken lights. The chairs and torture devices furnishing the space had been upended and scattered everywhere, and the order's members had all been laid low, some motionless, others moaning from the floor.

The black pyramid was fractured where it had been hit, and large cracks were slowly spreading up its surface. Wisps of dark vapor slowly seeped out of the cracks, spilling onto the floor like a heavy fog.

The ground in front of the pyramid had been swept clear, except for Katherine who laid next it, out cold, still holding the nightstick.

Slowly, I pushed up onto my knees, surprised to see some of my strength was returning. I shook my head again, and the pain ridden haze started to subside. My swollen eyes opened further and the throbbing wounds suddenly didn't seem to hurt so badly. I looked down as a gentle warmth spread across my chest and watched as the sapphires light re-ignited in the talisman.

Oh... Hell yes.

I scrambled frantically to my feet and began searching the ruins of the make-shift dungeon. After one fighting minute, I found the cage holding Annabell, thrown against another wall, laying on its side. I ran to it and ripped it open, reaching in to pull out the small child. Somehow, miraculously, she wasn’t hurt.

At first, the girl flinched when I grabbed her and tried to pull away.

“It's ok! Kid, it's ok!” I tried to calm her.

When I spoke, she stopped struggling and looked up at my face. As her terrified eyes took in my bruises and tattered uniform, she cried out and grabbed my coat, clinging to it for dear life.

Exhausted, I slumped onto the dust strewn floor and held her close while she shook like a leaf.

“It’s alright,” I said again, as she sobbed into my shoulder. “we’re leaving... we’re leaving.”

With a groan, I stood with the girl in my arms and started toward the stairs. I had only taken a few steps, however, when movement from across the room called my attention.

I turned, with sinking dread, to watch the black fog build around the base of the pyramid. Under the talisman’s influence I sensed the malicious dark Aether as it spread, forcibly reminding me of Jeb’s shadow Watcher. The Aether coalesced into numerous wicked barbed tendrils, coiling around the monument like a pile of serpents readying to strike.

I glanced down just in time to see the first dark spear lunge at Katherine’s unconscious body. Fast as I could, I channeled my will into the talisman and summoned the nightstick, angling it under her body and dragging her across the floor as the barbs lashed out.

She slid toward me and stopped at my feet, while the nightstick leaped into my free hand.

Having missed its mark, the black barb ricocheted off the ground and launched at one of the Order. The man was trying to stand when the barb pierced his body with the sickening sound of tearing meat. He howled in agony, grabbing at the solid shadow protruding from his torso, but his struggling made no difference. Slowly, the tendril lifted him into the air, the weight of his body causing him to slide further down the spike. With a final pained, blood filled cry, he perished as the dark Aether retracted, pulling the doomed man back to the base of the pyramid.

He hit the ground with thud, and the stone floor beneath the pyramid gave way revealing a deep dark pit beneath that swallowed the man whole.

The walls began to shake, and more broken bricks fell from the ceiling as the familiar quake of the banishing void rose up to tear the earth away. I watched the pyramid begin a slow descent into the growing chasm as the ground broke apart and fell away.

The tremors were more powerful than I had ever felt. I lost my balance and fell to a knee over Katherine’s body.

Several of the Order had recovered and were scrambling to the walls in the vain hope of escaping the sinkhole. More shadows spilled out of the fractured obsidian and crossed the quaking floor, slicing and tearing men apart as it dragged them down into the depths. The dying screams of wicked men mixed in the air along with the rumble of the falling house.

Shadow barbs lashed wildly around the cellar, and several came directly for me. With one hand I deflected the attacks, gripping the child tight while holding my ground over Katherine.

In the frenzy, I saw Gambal dodging a volley of tendrils nearer the falling monument. He ran backward frantically trying to avoid the collapsing floor, when a dark Aetheric spear shot out of the pyramid and stabbed him straight through his heart.

He gurgled and rasped, blood spilling from his lips as the shadows lifted him up. But rather than carry him down the hole, the tendril splintered and crawled under his flesh, spreading out into his limbs. Even amidst the rumbling earthquake I heard the distinct snap of his bones as he was contorted and twisted.

The Aether carried Gambal’s corps, like a grotesque puppet, across the widening void to face me as I desperately fought off the endless onslaught of malicious black barbs. I watched in astonishment as a vein of darkness lifted Gambal’s head, his eyes turned jet back.

His malformed jaw stretched wide and began to move, issuing forth a voice that vibrated in my chest. The sound burned my insides and conjured mental images of world ending calamity.

“Harbinger,” he boomed, “They are mine.” He lifted a bent and broken arm to point at Annabell and Katherine.

Ignoring his terrifying form, I set the child by the woman and crouched over them, fighting off the black tendrils with everything I had. It wasn't enough.

One of the barbs made it through my guard and stabbed my right thigh. I screamed in pain and barely managed to fend off another volley aimed at the child.

Even with the talisman, my strength began to fade. I lifted my head to Gambal’s possessed body as the cellar continued to quake and break apart around us.

“Go to hell,” I wheezed.

Pouring my soul into the nightstick, the Aetherfire flashed and turned blinding white. I took aim and hurled it at the shadows. The baton tore through the air, its flames severing the ghastly strings holding the corps aloft. Gambal’s animation ceased and he fell away into the chasm. I threw my body over the girls in a feeble attempt to shield them from falling debris when finally, the ground beneath us cracked and gave way.

In a last desperate effort, I grabbed them both with one arm and reached out, catching the edge of the pit with the other. I clung to it as we dangled over unnatural darkness, feeling my shoulder slowly separating once more.

I looked down at the unconscious woman and terrified child as I waited for my hand-hold to give out. This was it, all my efforts had been in vain. She would never see her mother again...

The quaking stones cracked under my fingers and a piece of the ceiling struck me painfully on the shoulder.

“No!” I screamed as the tendons in my shoulder stretched and failed, “Leo, you son of a bitch, please!”

The lip of the pit finally shook loose and my stomach lurched as we dropped. I held the girls tight, a futile protection, as we tumbled into the black.

“Save them!” I howled.

The talisman suddenly blazed with blinding light. It tore itself off my chest, and flew to the little girl, affixing itself to her body. Both she and Katherine were torn from my arms and ceased their downward fall as an explosion of white fire erupted behind them. It swirled and enveloped their bodies, lifting them up out of the dark.

I careened through the air, watching them ascend, the ruble bounding of their Aetheric protection. In the chaos I thought I saw the flames take on a distinct shape... Like a pair of folded wings.

I couldn't help but laugh in relief. I closed my eyes and made one final prayer as I fell.

"God, please. Take her home.”