The Fallen: War has Just been Declared...Against Hell

By Alexander W. Quinn

The Apocalypse has been averted, but at great cost. One girl gave her life to save the world, but her soul was cast into Hell. Now, a coven of Elemental warriors led by Robert Cesian will embark on a journey to save the soul of their fallen friend. - A twisted joyride of horror, gore and pop-culture, "the Fallen" is a masterpiece of darkness and a hidden gem of the horror genre.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257686056

Book preview

Quinn

PROLOGUE:

How the World Ended, Almost…

(Part 1)

New Orleans, Louisiana (Nearly 2 Months Ago)

Gods no!

Talia Forrester sat up in bed, sweat dripping from every inch of her body but with an iced chill racking her spine. The nightmare had been so real, so vivid this time that she could have sworn she had felt the fire, and as such she immediately pulled the chain to her bedside lamp so that she could examine her hands and body. Panic stricken and with a racing heartbeat that refused to calm, Talia threw a thorough inspection of every inch of her sweat drenched body, finding the usual scars she had come to know so well but no burn marks from the infernal fires that her mind had so clearly felt licking at her only moments before.

Hands trembling, tears freely flowing, she came to terms with the fact that it had only been a dream, not the apocalypse.

With her mind starting to focus once again and her heart starting to at least slow its pace, she reached out and straightened the alarm clock she had knocked over in her mad scramble for the lamp. With a sigh, she accepted the sad news that the shining green numbers on the LCD display was giving her. It was 2:45 in the morning. Daylight was still nearly three hours away, though she was sure that she could hear the diffused sounds of life coming from just outside of her window. Of course, being in the shadier section of New Orleans, not even the dead of night could deter the delights of the stumbling drunks. Mid afternoon or the birth of the morning, Winter’s embrace or the heat of Summer, nothing would stand in the way of New Orleans’ laisez-fare lifestyle.

Hours from morning, Talia briefly considered climbing back under the sheets to take another chance at getting some much needed rest, but at this point, it was obvious that the night would gift her no peace. And why should tonight be any different? She had had the same terrifying nightmare now for the past three evenings. Every vicious detail, every gruesome death and every damning image was the same; every night she saw Hell and every night she awoke far more terrified than she could ever remember being in her life.

Sliding from the derelict mattress and broken box spring that served as her bed, Talia reached with trembling fingers for a nightshirt that was draped next to her bedside table. Though she had always preferred the freedom of sleeping without the confines of clothing on, she could no longer stand the sight of her own body. Even though Jessup hadn’t laid a hand on her in months now, many of the spots that he had inflicted his ‘lessons’ on were still bruised, the purple discoloration standing up against the slow passing of time and starting to become in Talia’s mind a permanent reminder of why only fools rush into love. Both of her legs still held deep bruises, and her abdomen was a showcase of ruptured veins, split skin and the intermingling hues of browns, purples and yellows across skin that should have blended in with loose-leaf paper.

With a quick thought to irony, Talia accepted that it was that hell, her six month marriage to a man she once thought of as ‘the cool-bad boy’, that usually gave her a selection of nightmares to plague her rest. Some nights she would awaken, much as she had a few moments ago, rolling from the covers and falling to the bare floor, crouched and ready to run. On those nights, her mind would convince her that Jessup was standing over her, his belt wrapped around his knuckles and a beer hanging from his fingertips. In the wicked reminders of her past she would see him beating her, forcing himself on her, humiliating her in ways that she prayed to the gods of old and new that she would some day forget had ever happened. They were frightful and horrible, but when compared to the images that had haunted her for the past three evenings, she missed those memories and longed to have them visit her instead.

Hands still trembling, Talia pushed the button to the second hand coffee pot she had salvaged from a local yard sale. As the percolation began, she slid down into a wobbly kitchen chair and cast her eyes out into the shadows that at this point in the night had near total reign over her shabby little apartment. She forced her eyes to adjust to the dim conditions, still frightened by the dream and the darkness that she had witnessed within it but refusing to give into the fear so much as to turn on every light in her two room habitat. It would only take a few moments to make her eyes see into the gloom, and it was better than risking turning on her lights and inadvertently inviting those stumbling drunks outside to try coming up. New Orleans was, after all, a city for sex and sin, and she felt in the mood for neither. It was bad enough having the hordes throw beads at her in the streets while she walked to worked each day, expecting her to flash her top off for them, (Mardis Gras or not, it was a common occurrence for her). She didn’t need some twice over pissed fifty year old man stumbling up the stairs to her flat and pounding on her door because she was afraid of the dark.

As her eyes found the corners of her spaces and confirmed the absence of any monsters, demons or boogey-men, Talia found fit to move freely through the apartment, willing the time away in between the brewing of her caffeine intake with something to help her get to the bottom of the terrors in her dreams. Had the nightmares merely haunted her two nights in a row, she could have pushed the concern from her mind, but to have the haunting plague her a third night twisted it from a frightful flash into a serious issue for her. Adding to the ghoulish nature of the dream was the fact that it was identical every night, with familiar scenes from her hometown flashing through her mind as nightmarish creatures ravished about, terrorizing, killing, mutilation, raping; unleashing pure hell.

For the past three evenings, she had watched as fire ravaged her family home, burning through the memories of the only place she had ever truly been happy, incinerating the desk her grandfather had built and that her father had used for work, turning the kitchen appliances that her mother had used to baked fresh cookies into gray ash and black smoldering husks. Framed photographs of her and her brothers as children were engulfed by the black flames; their glass exploding as the emulsion of the photographs melted away.

Her heart would tear as the house, which her father had named the Brownstone, was ravaged by the supernatural fire that seemed alive, delighting in its destruction. For as heart breaking as that was to watch, it couldn’t compare to the absolute heart shattering experience of watching as the flames took Robert. She could only watch, helpless, as the black flames wrapped themselves around her brother, arcing up his legs and wrapping itself in coils around his arms. She would reach out for him, trying to grab a hold of his hand as the flames ate away at him. She would scream his name, but no matter how she struggled, she could only watch in horror as the only family she still had turned into black charred flesh and finally into gray ash, falling into the wind. All that remained of her beloved brother was his heart, lying in the pile of ash with the black flames dancing over its still pulsing form.

Before she could even begin to process Robert’s death, before she could start to grieve for the man who had essentially raised her and protected her after the deaths of their parents, the nightmare would turn on her, the intangible target placed upon her so that she would not just be a spectator to the violence but the recipient of it. Her fate was not to be burned alive by the fires as her brother had been, for though the infernal flames lapped at her greedily every night, it was the terrible beasts that would set on her, ripping into her and tearing at her flesh.

The terrible beasts. That was the only thing she could bring herself to call them. On some level, she knew what they were, but her rational mind would never allow her to accept it. They weren’t animals, though all of them had properties to them that she could recognize in the animal kingdom. Powerful hind legs, sharp claws inserted in padded paws and eyes that shone in the darkness. Of course, they all also had physical traits that she simply couldn’t believe in. The bones that stuck through their bodies, the leathery wings that hung from their shoulders and the additional limbs that protruded where limbs just shouldn’t extend from; they were the traits of aliens and monsters from science-fiction and fantasy movies.

But they were in her dreams, and she had seen them before.

Crouching by a bookshelf full with self help books and new age encyclopedias, Talia flipped instinctually to her favorite volume, wedged happily between her Doctor Phil collection and a small army of books dedicated to herbs and their various uses. The book she sought out was old, maybe even ancient, and in all likelihood should have been under glass in a museum rather than in a $400 a month New Orleans slum flat. Still, her boss had told her to take anyone of the books she fancied, and since his specialty had been in managing video stores rather than occult stores, he had no idea that he had allowed her to walk away with a priceless volume to compensate for a few hours of unpaid for overtime. It was just further proof that the Magic Box would probably have yet another new owner before the year was through.

The book she had taken smelled like sulfur, and as such it seemed like the perfect place to decipher her dream; her dream about demons. Though her rational mind could argue the point all it liked, it was obvious to Talia what the ‘terrible beasts’ in her dream were. They were demons, and she saw them for the past three nights running loose on Earth and killing her friends, her family and herself. With the slow dripping of the coffee as her only background noise, Talia Forrester sat cross legged on a small faded blue area rug, flipping through pages and fingering the small pewter pentacle around her neck, finding comfort in the small five pointed star and allowing it to fill her with some small shred of hope to ward off the lingering fear and terror of the dream.

Though it was just a trinket purchased on the street corner in the French Quarter downtown, the pentacle necklace, sometimes called a pentagram mistakenly, was a link for her to the faith that had guided her as a child and that her parents had celebrated so openly and so joyously. Though others would often stare at her or roll their eyes when asked, Talia was never one to hide her family’s beliefs in magic and in the ancient paegan gods. She had had been asked far more times than she could ever remember in her life if she sacrificed goats in her basement, or if she cast spells in cauldrons and had a broom stick that she would stick between her legs and gallop about on. It was simple ignorance though, often times projected from a majority Christian population that celebrated the birth of their religion’s savior by Yule rather on the man’s historical birthday and gave praise to Santa Claus on that day rather than remember the man’s supposed sacrifice.

She used to get angry about the ignorance, but as she left childhood behind and took her first steps into being an adult, she had grown too accustomed to it. She and her family believed in the power of nature, the life force of the planet around them and in the healing power of homeopathic medicines. She personally gave prayer to a number of gods that she believed had a hand in the creation of the world, and in a turn about of the ignorance she had had to deal with her entire life, she thought anyone who believed in one single all powerful being to be a trite silly. She had her faith; her magic.

Yet still she wanted to not believe in anything that she had seen in the dream.

Nonetheless, thinking of her faith, of her beliefs, also let her think of her family, and with the image of Robert falling to the black flames still fresh in her mind, she nearly picked up the phone to call her brother and make sure he was okay. It was an impulse she quickly dashed away, for she knew that he would brush the concern for himself aside and worry instead about her and rush down to make sure everything was alright. He was her protector after all, and after everything he had done for her already, she couldn’t allow herself to worry him over some silly dream.

Because it was just a dream. Of course.

Talia cast the fragmented thoughts aside, forcing her concentration onto the dream and to the book she had pulled to help her decipher and hopefully defeat it. If anything could help her to get over the nightmares, to push them from her mind permanently, it was this volume. The book in her lap was a jumbled text, written in a collection of languages that were either dead or dying. It had taken her several days of downloading sites from the local library’s Internet to even begin translating some of the writing, but it was a venture she felt was truly paying off. Now, an average everyday girl sitting in nothing but a nightshirt on the floor, Talia Forrester was successfully reading an ancient volume in Latin and Sumerian, flipping casually through a section that seemed to be dedicated to apocalyptic prophecies.

She doubted anyone else in her graduating class could claim such a feat, even those who had chosen to go to college rather than wing it as she had.

With each page she turned, Talia found a collection of various prophecies. Some announced the arrival of the gods, the coming of ancient deities that had forged the world and then moved on to create the remainder of the cosmos. These beings were ancient Powers, often times portrayed as beings of raw energy, purely elemental creatures. Other prophecies foretold harbingers of doom and death. They would tell of the darkness encroaching, of the return of chaos and disorder to the Universe. These passages read as though they were announcing the death of existence itself, and thankfully, seemed far from the visions that Talia had seen the passed three nights.

After only a few moments of searching, her sky blue eyes fell on a passage that did seem to be drawing her attention. A newly formed bead of sweat rolled across her forehead from her tangle of burnet bangs. She felt compelled to read, searching for answers to comfort her and tell her that the event playing out in her mind was just some neurotic nightmare that was a mixture of her failed marriage and repressed anger over her parents’ deaths. Perhaps it was just her mind’s way of dealing with the murder of her eldest brother, dark days that had fallen on them only a handful of seasons back. After all, William Cesian’s passing had been a nightmare of a different sort, so surely it could inspire the damnation she saw now in her sleep.

After having pressed through the pages however, her heart began to race and the lone bead of fresh sweat began to pool into a brand new coating across her entire body. Phrases began to jump out at her from the ancient book, descriptions that seemed to fit perfectly with the visions in her nightmares. In her dreams, the skies above always twisted as the nightmare began. The sun would vanish, the stars would bleed and then a blinding light would turn the sky purple and transform the sun into a blood red moon. She had never given the setting of her dream much thought, as it was the death and destruction that usually caught in her throat. Now, however, the words took her full attention, and she could see the skies in her mind once again, and this eerie backdrop gave her nightmare a renewed sense of absolute fright.

The prophecy, she read, told that these events would be the coming of a demon lord, one named Appolyon, and that he would bring the Earth into the borders of Hell itself.

The pages before her described her dream perfectly.

Talia pushed the book from her lap, shaking her head and forcing herself to stand and walk away from it. Her mind began to force a logical explanation into her thoughts, some reasonable answer to explain what she had just read. Sure, Talia, more so than just about anyone you might pass even on New Orleans’ streets, believed in magicks and in angels and demons. Still, her mind would first try to force a sensible nonsupernatural reason through her. After all, who opts for believing that they had just had a prophetic dream over the far more sensible conclusion that she had read the chapter before and the imagery had gotten stuck in her head and converted into a dream?

Slinking over to the sink, Talia turned on the faucet and grabbed a handful of water, splashing the liquid on her face and trying to help her mind lock onto focus, not just sheer simple fright. This was insane, she thought to herself. She was twenty-one years old, in great shape considering what she had been forced to live through in her life. She shouldn’t be creeping around her apartment scared out of her wits at three in the morning.

She took a long hard look into her wall mounted mirror, the dull and faded glass reflecting her image and taking her back a moment. With her scars hidden, she knew she was quite beautiful. Her eyes were usually a bright blue, a shade that could put the sky to shame on a cloudless day. Her hair was a deep brown and full of curl and life, and her skin had refused to allow the southern sun to tan it, keeping a firm hold on a pale hue like moonstone. She had a certain gothic beauty that gave her an edge when matched with her full curves and slim waist. Beautiful, but not by the reflection she saw.

Her skin seemed more ghastly than gothic, her hair was tussled and looked rather lopsided, and the recent loss of peaceful sleep the past three nights had given her cyan eyes a bloodshot ring around them. As she stared at the effects that her nightmare marathon was having on her, she noticed a flash in the reflection of glass, a quick flicker in her peripheral vision. Her VCR’s clock had blinked out, its green numbers disappearing from the mirror’s reflection. The digits flashed out for a second, the way they would when a quick power surge occurred, but came back on only a fraction of a second later. She was expecting to see the repetitive flashing of 12:00, something the device did every time it was unplugged or without power for even a moment, but that’s not the reaction she received. What she saw brought all of her fear rushing back into her.

The mirror reflected not the perky green lighted numbers, but a bright red steady display. Turning around and staring at the nearly antique VCR, she saw the display, saw the familiar LCD screen, and read the red numbers there.

666.

Paegan, Christian; it didn’t really matter. Pop culture had defined it as the tell tale number of pure concentrated evil.

She watched as flames exploded from the VCR, instantly reducing the old unit to a smoldering pile as it cried out in pain with sharp hissing. The crisped remains instantly brought the image of her mother’s melted appliances back to her, increasing her already exponentially rising fear. The flames turned from bright orange into an unnatural black, reaching out and climbing up her walls, growing as though they were fueled by gasoline. The chipped and faded paint of her walls cracked off and fell into the flames as screams sounded outside her window.

She was frozen in place, her mind essentially shut-down and determined to push through the only thing that made sense to her; that she was still dreaming. Unlike the dream that had plagued her for the passed three night, this nightmare was being unleashed in her new adopted city. Sparing a glance in the direction of her window, she saw New Orleans, not Corneria City, in flames, an inferno overseen by a violet sky and a crimson moon.

No, no, no! Talia screamed, overcoming her paralysis and rushing to the window. Staring down at the street below her, she saw the drunken man she had heard earlier screaming now, pinned down in the center of the street by a giant creature that resembled a dog, but only in the general shape. All other resemblances stopped short at that point. This thing, this demon, was far larger than any dog she had ever heard of or seen. Its body mass was nearly the same as a small bear. Though huge by those standards, it was not its size that by far distinguished it from the canine family, but rather the fact that its skeleton was on the outside of its body.

The dog-demon ripped into the drunken man, taking chunks from his body and lapping greedily at the blood that was gushing from the wounds. The man’s screams ended in a prolonged gurgle as his life ended, and the sound was replaced by a triumphant roar of celebration from the damned creature.

It was a sight more horrifying than anything she had ever imagined, at least, anything prior to the first night the dreams had started.

Talia screamed, and as the sound came out of her mouth, the dog turned its attention up to her, eyeing her with dead empty eye sockets and snarling with a mouth filled with spiked teeth and bits of the now dead drunk’s guts hanging loosely from the corners. The creature held this grotesque grin for but a moment before it rushed to the building, jumping onto it and digging in talons into the brick mortar of the apartments. As easily as a spider might climb its web, the dog beast scaled the walls, rushing up and crashing through the window as Talia fell backward onto the floor.

Talia scream again, backpedaling across the floor as the beast came towards her. She hit the wall, and with nowhere else left to go, she was helpless before the demonic creature. Without a conscious effort, she reached for the pentacle around her neck, grasping it so tightly that the legs of the star began to pierce her palm and draw small rivulets of blood from her. For as much as her rational mind might object, Talia found herself muttering softly the words of protection spells that she had heard her mother speaking when she was a child, simple words that could have been little more than a bed-time prayer but that she was now counting on too save her life.

The prayer had seemingly no consequence for the demonic being that had come for her. As the monstrous thing loomed over her, its mouth moved, and she heard the words it was speaking in her mind rather than in her ears. Appolyon comes for you, it spoke to her, an experience that gave her a throbbing headache as the psychic communication ripped into her mind.

Appolyon, Talia whispered, her terror temporarily replaced by fascination as she recalled the pages she had seen in her mystical text, in her Arcana.

The dog smiled as she mulled over the name, content that it had delivered its message and that its master would be pleased with it. Then, with a dark and evil look creeping into that hideous smile, it opened its great fanged mouth and ripped into her face.

Talia tried to scream, but the sound was thrown uselessly down the throat of the beast, sounding off of its tonsils and doing little more than allowing for the horrible stench of the creature’s mouth to fill her lungs. She could smell the metallic tainted scent of blood, taste the curdled flavor of death as the thing’s salvia slipped into her mouth.

She felt the demon’s tongue slap across her face, felt the pain of its drool eating away at her flesh as though it had acid in its mouth. Gasping for air but finding none, she finally felt the beast’s tongue slip into her mouth, some horrid and demonic kiss, before it clenched its jaw together and snapped her head from her shoulders.

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Talia Forrester bolted upright, throwing the sheets from her body as she awoke from yet another nightmare. The intensity of this dream was far greater than any she had in the previous nights, and her rational mind could not stand before its weight any longer. She had consulted her Arcana the previous nights, always coming to the pages on Appolyon and his demonic horde. Sane or not, she had accepted the truth; the Apocalypse was coming and it was already at her door step.

She grabbed the phone, but rather than dial her brother’s number as she had thought to do in her dream, she dialed another that she had decided to memorize, just in case. When she heard a female voice on the other end, Talia spoke, her words full of fear and anxiety but having a focus that they rarely held these past few years. I’d like to book a flight from New Orleans to Philadelphia please.

That morning, rather than show up to open the Magic Box at 7:00 AM as she always did, Talia Forrester was on a flight north, determined to get off of the plane, rent a car, and travel the forty odd miles to Corneria as fast as she could.

Hell was coming. Not a dream, not some demented throw-back to her repressed pain and anger; Hell itself was about to break through and tear into the Earth. Clutching the Arcana in her arms, Talia Forrester was determined to find a way to stop it, and the only person she knew who could help her, who would believe her, was her brother.

RC, she whispered, her brother’s nickname slipping from her in a sigh. Watching the clouds pass by beneath her, she remembered all of the times he had been a hero for her. He wasn’t just a brother, he was a father, a role model and the only person still alive whom she trusted unconditionally.

He was a hero, to her at least. She prayed that he could be a hero for the world now as well.

Chapter the First

The Second Coming of the Five

Corneria City, Southwestern Pennsylvania (Present Day)

What the Hell am I doing here?

The question resounded in the mind of Mikal Borneman like a gong erupting in the silent dusk. His head already throbbed with the compounded interest of the migraine he had ignored at the garage last night and the advance notice of the one that would be born when he went home to look over the bills for the next few weeks. To complicate his already bliss-less disposition, sweat rolled across the smooth dome of his ebony skull, racing in little rivulets down over his heavy brow and into his beady little eyes that looked like chocolate jimmies stuck into a gingerbread man’s cookie batter. Stung by the salty corruption, his already dark eyes darkened, blinking back as much the sweat as the confusion that was now evident in his completely baffling surroundings.

To his left stood a dead man. Five foot ten if he stretched with golden highlights to pitch black hair and a slight pink glint to skin that was pale as moonstone, Ryan Osborn had been pronounced dead nearly nine years ago. Cancer had claimed him and taken him from this world, leaving behind two ‘heartbroken’ parents and a sister who would keep his grave clear of leaves and weeds all the years since it was first opened. His eyes were amazingly full of life now, ironic to a tee, with flecks of emerald and gold shining out to swirl with the biggest grin you would ever see.

Like some twisted hyena on ecstasy, Death be damned if Ryan wasn’t the happiest person Mikal could imagine. No less than three minutes prior Ryan had grabbed him by his shoulders, shaken him slightly, and welcomed him to the gathering.

The embrace had been a cold one, triggering Mikal to wonder if Ryan, who seemed quite alive, had not only in fact been dead, but was still dead even now. He imagined a silent heart beating in Ryan Osborn’s chest yearning to pulse once more. Then a terrible thought occurred to him that Ryan was a vampire, or a zombie! RC had often spoken of such creatures as though they truly existed, pointing out historical facts and trivia that Mikal never had the time or patience to find backing for himself. It was possible such creatures could exist, and that Ryan could be one of them, but something ate away at this concept. Ryan had embraced him close to the neck, and neither his teeth nor his lips had gone anywhere near his flesh. And he didn’t seem like a zombie. Zombies should smell, shouldn’t they? Eating flesh, well, that’s got to leave an odor, and Ryan had none. He didn’t even have the usual human smell. Didn’t smell at all.

Confusing.

Upon seeing the wide-eyed stare and blank features, Ryan chipped up with, Died, went to Heaven, got bored. Needed a beer. He followed up this input with a happy little dance that made the oddly large sword slung across his back jitter awkwardly.

Next to him, snug enough, stood a creature of shy beauty content to hunch into Ryan’s arms and do her best to disappear entirely. It had been ages since Mikal had laid his eyes upon her, and as such he failed to recognize her right away. Mikal would always remember pigtails, braces, and baggy overalls, but none of that was evident in the woman before him now. Little Talia Cesian had grown up, trading in the body of an awkward tomboy for a figure any model would crave. A size 3, perfect by most standards, was accented by smooth skin that was just a shade darker than Ryan’s had been. Although the hue had seemed ghastly on him, it was precious on her.

A sad smile and a slight nod was all she offered him, along with a quick embrace. She swept her burnet strands from her face, allowing her shy eyes to fall briefly into his own. Mikal replied in kind with an uneasy smile, then dropped his eyes to find something else that had changed about the skinny rug rat he had remembered.

Think about Sophie, think about Sophie.

The reminder that he was married and had a lovely baby girl at home sounded across his mind, though it did little to force the image of Talia’s chest from his mind.

She’s RC’s sister, pay no attention to her breasts, no matter how huge they are.

Suddenly charged with having to think of little Talia Cesian as a woman rather than his friend’s kid sister, Mikal acted on reflex, pulling in his chest and the 250 lbs. that surrounded it. Talia, according to stories he had heard from RC, had already lived through more than anyone at the age of twenty-one should have to. Mikal knew only tidbits, but those facts included Talia’s brief life in New Orleans, a chapter of her life’s story that left her with an ex-husband and a new last name to remind her that love has a dark side.

No. Not little Talia Cesian. With a solemn nod, Talia Forrester handed him a simple wooden staff, plain as any ordinary walking stick could be, but with a length that nearly matched his 5’8" height.

Third, and most alluring to his weary eyes stood a goddess, of this there could be no argument. For as beautiful as RC’s sister had appeared to his eyes, this creature before him faded Talia as a main course does even the most pleasing appetizer. Ryan introduced her as Katrina Devlin, a new face and perhaps the most attractive sight in all of the Cornerian Valley. This exotic woman had eyes of pure sapphire, lips of sweet raspberry, and a body that hung close to the leather pants she wore. Her skin seemed to glow in an almost unnatural way, not the ethereal moonstone of Ryan or the porcelain perfection of Talia, but more of a luminescence that he could barely even comprehend. She spoke, and her voice was crystal and soothing, though his attention was drawn elsewhere and not even the inner voice screaming Sophie’s name could budge his midlevel eyesight.

Mikal could barely stammer as he took her hand, most likely having something to do with the casual fact that save for a fine cloak of ocean blue around her shoulders, this new companion was topless. And very perky. Indeed.

Pheromones?

She was speaking to him, trying to explain something important no doubt, but Mikal could only watch in heated anxiety as the blue cloak slipped with each subtle movement of her body. As he studied her chest with boiling enthusiasm, his eyes drifted upwards, locking onto one of those terrible little details he was so keen on picking up on. Much like Ryan, Katrina was not breathing, at least not through her nostrils. Her neck, however, seemed to pulsate with life, and Mikal saw the small slits for the first time. Katrina had gills.

Perfect.

Confused, excited, and feeling more and more like the migraine inside his skull would soon explode and take chunks from his head in the process, Mikal turned finally to Robert Cesian, the only friend in this world to not leave him through death or madness, hoping against hope that there would be reason to this gathering and that RC himself would not soon fall to the latter claim. He stood with his back to them all, green tank top outlining heavily burdened shoulders that refused to give in against the tragedy that had befallen them these past few months. Slowly he turned, meeting their collective gazes with mocha eyes frosted over by grief and despair. Though you could easily see the world’s weight in those faded brown eyes, you could also see a steadfast determination that few could hope to truly understand.

What remains of my humanity may not be able to hold the power I summon. All of you will be vulnerable if it escapes. Cesian looked into the eyes of his companions and saw nothing but the most concrete determination within them all. It wasn’t an issue of questioning this action. The hard facts of what they were about to do had been discussed and brought to conclusion already, and none amongst them would think to question the path that Cesian had now set upon, none save for Mikal, who was hearing these words with a fresh ear and nothing but confusion and angst swirling within him. If anything goes wrong, if the Rite doesn’t work he paused, taking in each breath with such severity that you could sense the darkness already rising, I will kill you all, and I’ll enjoy it.

He waited, locking eyes with each of them and allowing the full range of what he had said to be accepted. Mikal gave a quick glimpse to each of the others, having reluctantly decided that RC had gotten off the crazy train a few stops back, but saw that each member of the circle only nodded back at RC and seemed to collectively gather and hold their breath, even those who appeared that breathing was a questionable trait. Having received some sort of silent consensus of their acceptance of what was to come, Cesian held his left hand out to his side, closing his eyes and letting his fingers lightly stroke at the empty space there. Though no more than a handful of seconds passed, Mikal thought to speak out, to let his meager voice break the silent consent of this inexcusable intrusion in reason, but the handful of seconds ended in a flash of green flame that widen his eyes and sent trembles down his spine.

The emerald fire ran from the spot where Cesian’s fingers were, and in his sudden shock and following paralysis, Mikal had no chance to accept the fact yet that Cesian had not cried out, recoiled, or showed the slightest sign that he felt the strange fire that was certainly licking his outstretched fingers. Caught in some ethereal grip and unable to turn his attention from the scene before him, Mikal noticed, after the passing of what seemed like an eternity of fragmented seconds, that the flames had a form to them. However subtle it seemed at first, the form stretched its flaming soul from the fingertips of Cesian’s hand outward in a straight line. The length of fire shot out in a lance of nearly four feet before the flame ended abruptly. If the fire itself hadn’t been shocking enough to witness, the metamorphosis that it underwent next was enough to send the cold sweat and shivers running down Mikal’s back into overdrive.

The translucent green fire grew in intensity, burning suddenly white hot before fading completely. The flames that had been content to hang from the fingertips of Robert Cesian had hardened in that white hot flash, taken a solid form and revealing itself as not flame, but silver shining steel. Now gripped in his hand rather than floating from it, the magnificent sword was like none Mikal had ever seen before, brilliantly glistening as though it was freshly painted in some piece of Samurai artwork. A masterpiece, Mikal could see the dim lights of the early morning sunrise dancing along its blade, glinting in deadly beauty. The handles were finely crafted as well, with what looked to Mikal to be a small charm hanging from the leather braided tassels.

Before Mikal could begin to comprehend where the sword had come from, Cesian swung it through the air with such speed that the air hummed as though a roll of thunder was about to be born, and he brought the shining metal to his right wrist.

The blade was drawn tight, cutting deep and drawing a strong river of blood from Cesian’s veins. The wound bleed freely, spurting out line after line of red liquid with each beat of Cesian’s heart. The young commander shut his eyes, holding his arm out in such a fashion that the blood erupted in streaming jets, lashing out and splashing at the feet of his friends, each of whom stood, bracing themselves for what was about to happen. The blood jets began to slow, coming less frequently as Robert Cesian’s heart began its slow waltz into death. Finally, after what seemed to Mikal to be an eternity of horrid fascination, still unable to move or speak against the madness occurring at his very feet, his eldest living friend drew in one final breath of mortal air, and spoke words Mikal could never have known had been passed down for three-hundred and sixtyeight generations of Elemental Mage.

Templar invextrae Guar’dn en della soulstus. M’kander hutra infevronous.

It cut through Cesian like ice cold lightning, thrusting his limbs out to either side like a puppet suddenly unleashed from his strings. He fell, screaming, gurgling out incomprehensible words as blood ran from his mouth and nostrils like free flowing water, then from his eyes and ears, darkening and changing colors like a river of unmixed paint from the depths of his body. Red, green, blue, orange and yellow. Unnatural colors suited for this unnatural act. He began to shake, a slight jitter of immense pain that changed quickly into a convulsion like electric shocks running through his nerves.

Above, the dawn skies darkened into liquid coal, the last of the early morning stars turning red with the blood of saints. The early signs of the morning sun were washed away, and from the corner of his eyes Mikal thought he saw a strange image of a crimson moon with four giant stone buildings stretching up towards it. Thunder shook the heavens, exploding with a rage that the world had not heard in thousands of years.

A wealth of unnatural light began to build before their eyes, pooling into a velvet ethereal pool brought forth from the life blood of Robert Cesian. The ground trembled by the forces gathered as the blood flowing from his friend stopped suddenly, pooling around his feet and evaporating like some expensive smoke machine effect reserved for a high class rave or a low budget horror film. Mikal bit his tongue, twisting his head violently to catch the expressions of the others. Each face he turned to seemed on edge, but each allowed the experience to pass as though it was the expected reaction of their friend’s apparent suicide attempt.

The sky above them returned to normal, the few stars strong enough to fight with the sun pushing over the horizon re-ignited, and all was sound as it had been save for the ethereal pool of light before them.

Ryan Osborn, who had first taken the courage to set his friend upon this course, put his hand on Cesian’s shoulder, turning the young man slowly to look upon his face. Be it the image of his friend and comrade, they would embrace one final time before tip toeing into Hell, but be it the visage of a monster, he was also prepared to take the