Snow flew into the room as the front door opened, and two haggard creatures stepped out of the freezing night and into the slightly warmer confines of the mansion. The first of the two, clad in leather jacket and jeans, with his curling black hair hanging low around his pale face, grunted in appreciation as he entered the building. He was undead, but he preferred warm weather to cold; a major factor in his decision to relocate to New Orleans years ago. Of course, New Orleans and most of the southeastern United States was now blanketed in a blizzard of supernatural origin, and Michael Hazard the Vampire was forced to deal with the cold.
Behind him, Paul Gold, his dark suit torn in places, made his way into Perseus' home, tracking in snow and slush. The older Vampire kicked off his shoes, sending them spinning across the hardwood floor, and began to make fists with his toes. "Well," Gold said, "I must say I am beginning to feel much better."
"Shut up, Paul," Hazard growled. Gold was a member of a Vampire sect that Hazard was opposed to on basic principles. Unlike many undead, Hazard had retained much of his humanity; he had to feed on the blood of the living like any other Vampire, but he chose his prey carefully. Gold and his ilk killed far too casually and indiscriminately for Hazard's taste. And then there were the rumors of the farms...
Hazard pushed those thoughts out of his mind. For now, Gold was an ally. His help would be needed in the coming battle, when Hazard, the Revenant, and Perseus put a stop to the unnatural blizzard and its unholy origin.
To ensure Gold's help, Hazard was forced to let the bastard feed. He had not been a pleasant experience, for either of them.
But now they were back at what Hazard mentally referred to as base command, and he could forget about what Gold had done out there in the snow and ice.
"Hello the house!" Hazard called. "We're back!"
In moments, Kurt Densmore, the Revenant, appeared from a side passage. "Oh, good, you're here. Hazard: we need you to go out again. Alec needs some shopping done."
Hazard groaned. He didn't feel like going back out there. "Why can't the little Wraith do it himself?"
"The weather is to rough for any of us, or the cars. In fact, Jones, Baron, and Percy are working on the jeep right now. Trying to winter-fy it for the trip to Franklin Enterprises."
"Bloody hell? Franklin Enterprises?" Hazard asked.
Kurt shrugged. "That's where we'll find the Cult and Mephistopheles."
Hazard shook his head. "What else did I miss?" He tried to ignore the fact that Gold had wandered off on his own.
"Bran took your car into town to find Viracocha, and Selura and Rachel left to find the blueprints for the Franklin building. And Vic and Alec made some calls; Percy wants you to go some bar called the Silver Key and pick the merchandise up."
"The Silver Key?" Hazard said softly.
"Yeah," Kurt said. "Ring a bell?"
Hazard shook his head, lying to his old friend. "No." Kurt seemed to like the scrappy Wraith, but Hazard had doubts about him. Especially if the lad was familiar with the Silver Key. The Key was a rough and tumble place, owned by a drug dealer and gun runner called the Jamaican, and frequented by less savory types. Hazard fed there often. "I'd better get going, if I plan to be here for the assault."
Kurt nodded. "The money's in Percy's study. I'll go get it."
The weight of the world squeezed in on him, and the pressure was all but unbearable. He had just regained life a moment ago, the wound in his chest healing slowly, and already he felt himself slipping once more into the dark realm of death. He felt the sodden, shattered weight of two floors press into his back, his face mashed hard into the floor, his arms and legs pinned beneath tons of rubble.
He wondered idly how much oxygen he had, and if he would die from internal injuries before he suffocated.
He felt another rib buckle, and the bone pierced through a lung. It began to fill with fluid. He felt like his head was going to split open, and the warm trickle along his cheeks hinted that he was bleeding from the ears.
Bran Mac Lyr knew he shouldn't be alive. The Kurgan should have killed him, should have separated his head from his shoulders and ended it forever. But Viracocha, the seven thousand year old Peruvian Immortal, had proved too tempting a target. The Kurgan ignored Bran, and killed Viracocha, the last hope this world possessed.
Maybe he would have been better off dead and gone. At least then he wouldn't be around when the fireworks went off, and Chibbikukk or whatever Kurt's Elder God was entered the prime material plane and took over. Maybe it wouldn't notice him here, buried under tons of rubble, and he would be able to peacefully live out his days, dying and resurrecting over and over again, slowly going mad.
No, Bran could never be that lucky.
He felt his back start to give, and everything went black.
Again.
The snow had piled up almost three feet deep against the front door of City Hall, but the man of straw paid it no heed. He pressed his way through the white material, his preternatural strength more than enough to make a path through the snow. When he reached the door, he placed one gloved hand against it, and knocked snow off of his hat with his free hand. He could feel a quiet rhythm, a kind of beat, emanating from the door.
"He's here," the Scarecrow rasped. Behind him, the Fool began to dance a jig, singing a little ditty about death and rape and destruction.
The Scarecrow loved the Fool, but sometimes he could be really flighty. "Remember the task at hand, dear," the Scarecrow chided.
"Of course, of course," the Fool said quickly. "I'm just excited. We're going to be a family again!" he shouted, hopping up and down. The Fool turned to the third member of their party, the massive stone bodied creature known only as the Gohlem. "Aren't you excited, Gohlem dear?"
The expressionless face of the Gohlem nodded once, curtly.
"Then lets get on with it," the Scarecrow muttered darkly. A casual slap of his hand caused the door to burst inward, smashing to the ground and skidding across the floor. Snow whipped past the Scarecrow into the room, extending the cold grasp of winter still further. The Scarecrow followed, kicking snow from his boots and shaking it off of his cloak.
The Fool danced inside at the Scarecrow's side, oohing and ahhing at the architecture. "Neo-Georgian...," the Scarecrow heard the Fool mutter.
The Gohlem followed a pace behind, silent as always.
The trio made their way through the lobby, their enchanted senses reaching out and probing the room and the building for the presence of their sibling. Each could feel the steady pulse of their brother, as it echoed in their breasts. They knew he was present, somewhere in the building, but trying to pinpoint exactly where he slept was difficult.
"Let us split up and search City Hall separately," the Scarecrow suggested. The Fool shrugged and scampered away, while the Gohlem nodded and turned his heavy steps down a darkened hallway.
The Scarecrow watched them leave, and his straw heart grew heavy. The Fool, the Gohlem, and the Wyrm were close to him; closer to him sometimes than his own limbs. Their absence left an empty feeling in the pit of his soul, like he had been crippled or burned severely. The past few days in their company had been bliss.
He reminded himself that he would feel even better when the Wyrm was awakened, and he began to move, searching for a stairwell or elevator. He found the elevator easily enough, and leaned against the button that would summon the device. A chime rang out, and the engine of the elevator began to hum. The Scarecrow tapped one foot in mild irritation as the contraption took its time to descend.
A short while passed, and at last the doors chimed open. The Scarecrow's eyes flashed orange in their pits; the elevator was occupied.
Two women, it appeared. The taller one, a blonde, wore a long coat and held a long tube in her hand. The shorter female had a mane of thick red hair, the color of fresh blood, and her eyes widened in shock and terror when she saw him.
The Scarecrow's leather mask split into a sickly grin, and he flipped back his cloak. The blonde woman leapt at him, arms outstretched, in a futile effort to harm him. Humans could be so stupid. The Scarecrow caught the woman in mid-air, and pivoted on his heels, using the woman's momentum to carry her over his shoulder and send her flying through the air and into the wall behind him. She smashed into it with a thump, and the Scarecrow felt satisfied that she was wounded and probably stunned.
He turned to the female still in the elevator car.
The girl had curled up on the floor, cradling her head in her hands, rocking herself and mumbling incoherently. The Scarecrow approached her and bent over, to examine her better. He reached out with his supernatural senses to try and discern what had caused her collapse. He started for a moment when he realized that she was no mere human. She had been seeded with some kind of power, a power that had taken root and blossomed.
But what power? The aura was all wrong for an Immortal or Nightbane...
The Scarecrow's thought was cut off abruptly, as he felt a great weight smash into his face, knocking him backward out of the elevator and into the hall. He crashed to the ground and skidded along it, stopping only when he reached the far wall.
The red-headed woman rolled to her feet, and stepped out of the car.
"Telekinesis?" the Scarecrow asked. The woman took an involuntary step backward at the sound of his voice; like old cornstalks crumbling apart. The Scarecrow found his equilibrium and stood quickly. "A pretty trick, my dear, but it shall not save you."
Out of the corner of his blazing eye, the Scarecrow saw a sword -- a sword! -- flash toward him, the naked blade gleaming. With preternatural speed, the Scarecrow caught the tip of the sword in his hand, and wrenched the weapon away from his attacker. It was the blonde; she had recovered quickly from his attack. And she carried a claymore. Immortal, then?
He hefted the sword in his hand, and then threw it to the ground. The blonde gave him a determined look, and shifted into some kind of fighting stance. She yelled something about plans to the redhead. The Scarecrow was only listening with half and ear, though, as he gathered his power within himself.
The redhead, thinking he was distracted, saw an opportunity to get past him. She bolted from the elevator and aimed herself down the hall.
She didn't get far; the Scarecrow caught her by the arm and wrenched her to a halt.
The blonde screamed in alarm and tried to kick the Scarecrow in the head. He let her, and chuckled dryly when it had no effect. She didn't even knock his hat loose.
He felt a weak wind buffet him from his right side; the redhead was trying to use her telekinesis against him. It seemed, however, that her earlier teke blast had left her drained and unable to summon up an amount of force that would affect him.
"Humans. So stupid. Like cattle," he said, grinning. Then, casually, he reached out towards the redhead with his abilities and swallowed her soul.
When the redhead's body fell from his hand, the skin going gray and beginning to dry and crack, the blonde let out another ineffectual scream.
She took a threatening step towards the Scarecrow, and he laughed. She could not hurt him; she didn't have the power.
He reached for her with his right hand. Immortal souls were always tastier than mortals. Though he had to admit, the redhead had been a better meal than most.
The Immortal dodged his clumsy attack, jumping to the side.
No matter. He would catch her eventually.
Bran regained consciousness for a brief moment, and he sucked in a ragged breath that tasted of plaster and old paint chips. His head pounded painfully, but it seemed to him, in his delirious state, that the weight across his back had lessened some. <Could the weight be shifting?> he wondered. <Could the Kurgan be digging me out, so he can finish what he started?>
Bran tried to flex the fingers of his right hand, as the idea of recovering his sword entered his mind. But his hand was smashed; it had healed badly, and the fingers were curved like claws. Unless he had a chance to re-break his hands, and time for it to heal correctly, he wouldn't be able to use a sword.
While the Scarecrow battled Selura, and the Fool flitted about, the Gohlem looked for the Wyrm.
The Gohlem's heavy tread took it deep into City Hall, bypassing offices and departments, the pulse of the Wyrm drawing it closer to the Wyrm's resting place. The beat hammered in the Gohlem's breast, almost like a real heart, and it answered the Wyrm's call.
With casual disregard, the Gohlem ripped doors off of their hinges, smashing his bulky frame into this room or that one, trying to find evidence of the Wyrm. Every room he found seemed devoid of his brother.
The stench of humanity was strong in this place, and the scent of the Wyrm was spread too thinly for the Gohlem to get a decent fix on the Wyrm's whereabouts.
Until he smashed one massive hand against a doorway, and it refused to give. The Gohlem stood still for a moment, its hand wedged in the door, contemplating the fact that the portal had not been sundered with one solid blow. It wrenched its hand free, and pondered the door once more, the yellow eyes glimmering softly under stony brows.
Then it braced one hand against the door, and pulled the other back for a prodigious blow. The hand flew forward, crashing against the door, and the door exploded outward, shattering into a dozen shards. The Gohlem stepped through the doorway, and saw a narrow staircase winding down into darkness. The scent of the Wyrm wafted up from below.
The Gohlem's marble face split into a grin.
The staircase was ancient, composed of black iron pitted with rust and covered with cobwebs and insects. It looked serviceable, however, and the Gohlem gingerly placed his full weight on the first step. It held.
Another brief smile appeared on his carved visage, and he began the descent, tracing one marble hand along the waterstained wall.
The Scarecrow's hands were wrapped around her neck. He was squeezing, forcing the air from her lungs, making her fight for every heated breath. Worse, his touch seemed to be sucking the Quickening out of her body, flash by flash. Selura could feel it drain from her, like her life's blood.
It would take a while, but eventually the Scarecrow would kill her. Just as he murdered Rachel.
Rachel. Poor girl.
<No!> Selura screamed silently. <I will not let him win!> She gripped the Scarecrow's spindly forearms in her own hands, trying to push him off of her, but his strength was more than hers. The best she could do was lessen the pressure of his crushing grip, and that only slightly. She spat curses at him, and tried in vain to knee him in the groin. She knew it wouldn't hurt him, but she hoped it might distract him for a moment, and allow her to gain some leverage.
It wasn't working.
The Scarecrow's orange eyes blazed deep within his leather mask, and he chuckled to himself, a sound like dry leaves skittering across a sidewalk.
Selura looked into those eyes, the eyes of a killer older than her, older than humankind, and she hawked up as much phlegm as she could muster and spat in them. The Scarecrow didn't even flinch. Indeed, her defiance only made him chuckle all the more.
Selura's vision swam, and she knew unconsciousness was only a frustrated breath away. She tried once more to wrench the Scarecrow's hands from her neck, but her strength was gone. She was going to die.
As her vision dimmed, she thought she saw something loom over the Scarecrow's shoulder...
The Scarecrow's face suddenly split as six inches of hardened steel blossomed from his forehead. His grip on Selura's neck slackened, and she was able to draw in one quick, shuddering breath of sweet oxygen. It gave her the strength to get her elbows underneath the Scarecrow's chest and push him off of her.
The Scarecrow rolled off of her, spilling straw from the ragged hole in his head. Selura saw Gordon then, his Chinese lion-headed sword held tightly in his hands. He nodded to her once, and then slashed at the Scarecrow once more, his sword slashing open the demon's tunic. More straw spilled free.
Selura sucked in more air, grinning stupidly at Gordon, rejoicing that, once more, she had cheated death. Then she remembered Rachel, and shot a quick glance at the girl's corpse. Rachel's skin was stretched tight against her face, her eyes blood shot and bugging out, her pallor gray and waxy. The body looked like all the moisture, all the energy, had been sucked out of it.
And, in truth, it had.
Selura dragged herself to her feet and lurched over to Rachel's body. She closed the corpse's eyes, and then reached across the body and picked up her claymore.
The fight was going badly for Gordon. Despite having the advantage of surprise, Gordon was unable to match the strength and speed of the Scarecrow, and the monster was able to slap the sword out of Gordon's hand. Gordon was backing away slowly, now, one hand in a coat pocket, the other outstretched to ward off the Scarecrow.
The gash in the Scarecrow's head was already closed, and as Selura watched, the cut in his chest closed up as well.
"Get out of here, Shea," Gordon shouted. "Let me deal with this bastard."
Selura hefted her sword, and thought about ignoring Gordon. But there were the plans to consider; Rachel had given her life for them. It would make little sense for Selura to do the same. The world was depending on her.
No. *Perseus* was depending on her.
She scooped up the tube that held the plans, and then ran past the Scarecrow and Gordon. Gordon pulled his hand out of his pocket, bringing with it a flare gun.
Selura ran. And she didn't look back.
The darkness was absolute, but the Gohlem's yellow eyes pierced it with ease. Its giant stone body tore through the cobwebs, and its strength was more than enough to shatter the other doors it encountered as it descended further. It had passed through ten gates, down to a depth that it considered close to six hundred feet. By rights, he should have been deep underwater by now; no one dug this deeply in New Orleans.
The tunnel was unnatural. And yet it made the Gohlem feel comfortable. This *must* be where the Wyrm lay.
Another door loomed out of the darkness. The Gohlem raised its fists over its head and brought them down quickly; the door shattered like glass.
It stepped through, and found itself on solid ground. The stairway had ended.
The space it found itelf within was huge; dwarfing even its mighty frame. Its eyes could not find where the room began or ended, seeing instead only emptiness and darkness.
A torch suddenly flared to life, a few hundred feet from where the Gohlem stood. The light blazed brightly, but it could drive away only a portion of the darkness. The Gohlem knew the torch must have been large, and yet it looked like a mere spark in a sea of black.
In the radius of light shed by the torch, the Gohlem could see the base of a great column carved out of jade. The base was easily twenty feet across, and the top of the column disappeared as it rose upward.
The Gohlem could feel the pulse of the Wyrm radiate from the depths of the column. Standing beside it was a man in a black coat and hat, with a red scarf around his neck. He held a sword.
The Gohlem chuckled silently and began to cross the span of darkness that separated the column from it. As it did so, it sent out a call to the Fool and the Scarecrow; they would follow him shortly, and together the three of them would awaken the Wyrm.
The Gohlem's face widened as it smiled, sure of its coming triumph.
Suddenly, the ground shifted beneath its feet, and the stones of the floor collapsed. The Gohlem uttered not a sound, springing forward on crumbling stonework, to smash on solid ground again, prostrate and angered.
It thought it heard the man chuckling. The yellow eyes blazed with undisguised anger and hatred.
The Gohlem stood, and advanced on the laughing man. It saw the man reach within his cloak and withdraw some kind of weapon, a weapon that he pointed towards the man of stone.
As the man prepared the fire the weapon at the Gohlem, a flash of pinkish light appeared at his elbow, accompanied by a burst of brimstone that caused the torch to flare, signalling arrival of the Fool.
The man had a moment to scream before the Fool cracked open his head, and spat fire on him. The man burst into flames, and the Fool casually kicked him across the room.
The burning man crashed down hard, triggered one of the sinkhole traps that almost caught the Gohlem, and disappeared from sight.
"No need to thank me, dearie," the Fool called, laughing. The Gohlem nodded and plodded forward.
The two beings stood at the base of the jade column for a long while.
The Gohlem stood impassively, its head erect and its yellow eyes regarding the pillar of green rock. Beside him, the Fool hopped from foot to foot, clearly agitated. He tried to whistle twice, and both times gave up. The Fool tried juggling fireballs for a while as well, but stopped in disgust after a moment or two.
The Gohlem knew the Fool was worried about the Scarecrow. It knew that the Fool's fear were groundless. The Scarecrow was death incarnate; nothing could stop him.
The Gohlem's patience was borne out eventually, as the tattered form of the Scarecrow appeared at the foot of the stairwell the Gohlem himself had descended. As soon as the Scarecrow showed his face, the Fool began to skip, and even the Gohlem relaxed stony muscles that it hadn't been aware of being stiff.
The Scarecrow made his way across the floor carefully, avoiding traps with practiced ease, until he stood once more with his siblings at the foot of the emerald pillar.
The Scarecrow offered his hands, and the Gohlem and the Fool each took one. The three turned to face the tower, and each of them summoned up their arcane power, feeding it into the Scarecrow's straw body. The Scarecrow released it in arcs of blue and white lightning that caressed and teased the jade column.
The column began to crack.
Bran opened his eyes once more, and shivered when he realized he could *see*. The utter darkness of his tomb was relieved, and a soft golden light fell upon him. The great, sodden weight of the Belvedere hotel had been lifted from his back, and he now lay stretched out across the snowy street.
The cold of the earth began to seep into his bones, and he almost wept. he didn't expect to feel anything but agonizing pain for a long, long time.
Carefully Bran sat up, wincing as his bones and muscles began to settle back into their correct places. He noticed that his hands had been rebroken, and were healing nicely.
He looked up at the source of the golden glow. "Gabrial," he breathed.
The archangel had shed his earthly facade, revealing his true, alien form. No longer was he the hunched over, dark haired human with the red nose of the alcoholic. Now he stood straight and tall, with skin that gleamed like burnished gold, eyes of molten fire, and teeth like pearls. He wore a suit of golden mail, and a winged helmet with a hawk-faced visor pushed back, revealing his kind face. Two metallic wings hung from his back, attached to his frame by a harness that stretched across his chest.
His greaves were winged as well, and in his hands he held a blazing sword that dripped fire and a golden shield that radiated light.
"No more kidding around, huh, Gabe?" Bran wheezed.
The Kherubim nodded. "This is the Final Battle, Bran Mac Lyr. Tonight, either Mephistopheles or I will fall. Perhaps we both will." His eyes seemed to lose focus for a moment, staring into the night.
Bran took the opportunity to lurch to his feet. Every joint felt stiff, every muscle cried out in pain.
The molten eyes refocused on him, and Bran realized that, even while standing, he still had to look up to see into Gabrial's eyes. "I have a job for you, son of Lyr."
Bran noticed his sword, then, lying in the snow a few feet from the corpse of a werewolf. <Where did that come from?> he thought absently. Aloud, he asked, "And what might that be?"
Gabrial put a reassuring hand on Bran's shoulder. "There is a dragon that needs slaying."
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PoT_Ch35.php -- Revised: January 27, 2021.