Thirty-Four
Across the city, I sent my other self hurtling through the city. Still clutching the red emergency axe, Red Ryan rode solo. Well, almost solo. Io’s flock of drones kept me company as we sped through Eastport, pinpointing every last ritual and swooping in to fuck their shit up.
I banked sharply and rose up through the clutter of buildings. With a single flap to reposition myself, I landed on the edge of a building and took off at a dead sprint.
The quintet of possessed citizens all huddled around the ritual sign, which was glowing a sickly green, spotted me and instantly broke apart. One of them managed to shout out a warning. Another cursed and reached for a gun.
It was all over in seconds.
I buried my axe in the skull of the first one and then drew my dual pistols. Two trigger pulls each netted me four headshots. Four phantoms burst out of the now-inhospitable host bodies and I leapt after them, spinning my silver wings through the air like scythes and dispersing all four of them in one go.
I landed with my back turned, holstered both guns, and reach back to retrieve my axe.
A quick tug loosened it from the man’s skull, and I was sprinting for the edge of the roof.
Unlike most of the people in the park, all of these hosts who were operating the secondary ritual circles were willing participants in Gertrude’s plan to merge the mortal world with the afterworld. The phantoms possessing them only did so with their permission, similarly to Selene and Hannah’s symbiotic relationship.
I’d learned that down on 86th street, when I tried just grazing the first two guys that came after me to eject their phantoms and disperse them, only for nothing to happen. While I was past the point where a brawl with a handful of phantom-enhanced citizens could deal me any harm, my attempt to try and pull my punches blew up in my face when one of the guys fired a shotgun into my back.
I healed quick. He didn’t.
Leaping off the edge of the building, I spread my wings and took flight.
This rooftop was number five. That only left… thirty-one.
This has been a really long day, I admitted, feeling the exhaustion wearing at me.
We can sleep when we’re dead, my higher self admonished.
I was right, of course.
Guide me to the next one, sweet cheeks, I called out to Io.
Right this way, handsome. Keep your guard up. This next group looks tough!
Nothing I can’t handle. Especially not with you watching my back.
-
Gertrude and I fought in mid-air for all of about fifteen seconds. Then she hit me with one of her necrotic bolts. My silver wings completely deflected the blow where Gabby’s golden wings had failed, but it still knocked me off course. It felt like getting shot while wearing kevlar (which I had done multiple times during Tabitha’s intense training sessions), only less gentle.
From there on it was less of a head-on duel and more of a run and gun situation.
I circled her, darting left and right with my blue fairy wings and letting her fire off a bunch of spells without hitting anything. When she lulled, I’d dive in and slash at her, only for her to summon a shield of such dense obsidian-hued necrotic energy that even my angelic sword couldn’t pierce it.
I’d dive and circle again, and the pattern repeated itself.
It appeared to be a stalemate, just like what had happened between Kevin and I on the football field. Only this time, I wasn’t reaching the limits of my current abilities, I was stalling for time on purpose. Down below; Euna, Selene, Autumn, Lana, and Gabby were working in concert to rip apart the phantom army.
Agent Blitz was perched up atop a gazebo, firing red streaks that punched through phantom after phantom and dropped them into the bowels of hell instead of just dispersing them into nothingness.
The formerly possessed people weren’t just running away screaming either (okay some of them were, but these were Eastport civilians, they’re built differently) they were beating the shit out of anyone who was still possessed. With Gabby blessing people left and right, and Autumn targeting the possessed with roots that made them easier targets, the frenzied melee was progressing very nicely.
The number of phantoms was dwindling.
Gertrude suddenly hissed in frustration as she glanced off throughout the city. A truly wicked cackle escaped her host body as she swirled around my latest attempt to slash at her.
“Now!” She boomed out in a voice that shattered windows all around central park.
Green light flew up from over two dozen points all across the city, and green-tinted anomalies began cropping up all over the sky.
Like ants swarming a particularly juicy piece of forgotten food, phantoms came pouring out of these breaches. An army. No. Multiple armies-worth of dead were returning to Eastport.
Oh hell no.
Hannah suddenly ejected from Selene and flew off towards the incoming phantoms.
I’ve got this Ryan!
Hannah, no! There’s too many of them!
Trust me. Just keep doing what you’re doing. I chose you for a reason.
Off in the distance, one of the ritual circles flickered and died, choking off several anomalies. The majority of the phantoms who’d poured forth out of those handful of anomalies were suddenly sucked back up into the sky and returned from whence they came. Some seemed to be made of sturdier stuff than the others, and managed to linger, but they accounted for a mere drop in the bucket compared to all the phantoms that got drawn back in.
“What! Who is doing this?” Gertrude demanded.
Io, send a couple drones back our way. I need you to lead Gabby around clockwise while I circle counter-clockwise. Gabby, bless Autumn’s tree and follow the ravens. If you see a green ritual circle manned by a handful of possessed, terminate them with extreme prejudice. Autumn, take Gabby’s blessing and channel into the tips of all your roots. Prick any of the possessed with a thorn and if that doesn’t work stab them through the heart. Selene, Lana, Euna, keep doing what you’re doing and watch each other’s backs! Everybody got that?
A cascade of affirmatives filtered back to me and I set my sights on Gertrude.
With a barbaric yell, I sped towards her and tackled her.
I pointed myself down towards the church, and dove.
Gertrude shrieked more out of shock than pain or rage, and tried to shove me away, but I only squeezed tighter and angled my wings to make my descent even sharper.
At the last second, I let go of her and pulled up with all six of my wings at once.
She tried to recover and check her momentum, but my powerful downdraft scattered the necrotic energy gathering around her palms. Gertrude, still hitching a ride on Chelsea’s body, crashed through the stained glass window above the church’s entrance (right through the halo too, a beautiful three-pointer if I do say so myself). She plummeted down into the rows of pews and tumbled to a halt.
I dove through the window a moment after her and landed on the ground, folding my wings up and withdrawing them into my back as I strode towards her.
Right up until Kevin and Gertrude had ripped her from her grave, Chelsea had been holding up remarkably well for a two years-dead cadaver. Kevin’s family must have paid extra for that vacuum-mummification technique that was all the rage in the 22nd century. All that effort was wasted now though. Even held together with magic, Chelsea’s body was falling apart: one of her arms had been torn off in the fall, her jaw was askew, one of her eyeballs was out of its socket, and an awful lot of her flesh had peeled off to reveal some gruesome deterioration underneath.
I’d seen an awful lot of dead bodies in the past couple days, but this was the first one that just made me sad. I didn’t want to fight Gertrude like this. Not if it meant continuing to violate Chelsea’s memory.
I glanced up at the gilded halo resting on the far end of the church. It’d been a long time since I was inside a place like this. More out of familiarity than any sense of religious devotion, I made the sign of the sacred circle before my heart and moved to take a seat before Gertrude.
Gertrude’s phantom form was bleeding through the severe wounds in the girl’s corpse, and she was struggling to rise as she kept trying to gain leverage with a hand that wasn’t physically there. Her back was to the front of the church which meant she had a perfect view of me as I calmly stepped to one of the unbroken pews and sat down.
My angelic sword made the lightest little tink on the marble floor as I placed it tip-down and appraised my latest nemesis.
Unlike Boris, and most definitely unlike Michelle or Kevin, I no longer felt any rage for the figure before me. All I felt was pity.
“Let’s talk.”
-
With twenty-two circles to go, Gabby suddenly reached out to me.
I have taken out four so far, your majesty. Your ravens lead, and I follow!
Well done. Keep it up! We need to close them all or Gertrude wins.
I poured on the speed, dropping down into a roll and coming up firing. Three shots fire, three bodies dropped. A swing of my sword as I used my fairy wings to boost myself over the ritual circle, and two heads were flung up into the night sky. I twisted as I pushed off the roof, slashing my wings through all of the ejected phantoms, and then I was on my way again.
Somewhere to the north, Io’s ‘ravens’ observed Gabby pummeling another group.
Sixteen down. Twenty to go.