I was just finishing getting dressed again – for the record, we didn’t wake up Anastasia – when there was a knock on the door. I quickly cast a cantrip to fix my hair and opened the door. Persephone was there. “Do you have a moment?” she asked.
“Of course,” I answered. “What’s up?”
“I wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done for us. Terry told me how you brought back Emily. I don’t know how I can repay you.” I could think of a few ways. “Also, I wanted to apologize to you.”
“For what?”
“Knowing Terry, I’m pretty sure he’s threatened, or maybe even attempted, to kill you at least once. So, I’m sorry for that.”
Ah, that. “It’s fine. He’s obviously pretty paranoid. One of these days, I’m really gonna have to tell you all about him and the warden.” She gave me a confused look. “It’s a long story. In his defense, his body was going through puberty, or at least, I’m pretty sure that was part of that. Speaking of which, you might want to talk with Emily. I did what I could to help Terry deal with it, but I don’t think anyone’s spoken to Emily about the changes her body will be going through.”
Persephone laughed. “I’m sure Terry hasn’t said anything about it to her. I’ll take some time to talk with her.” She sighed. “I’ve missed so much.”
“You have time to make up for it now,” I said, giving her a comforting hug. I absolutely wasn’t copping a feel. I was being nice.
“Thanks,” she said. “By the way, I was hoping I could speak with Greta?”
Greta walked over to where Persephone could see her. “Yes?” she asked.
“Well, it’s just… you’re a Winter Wolf, right?”
Greta nodded. “I am. What of it?”
“It’s just, I was hoping you could help me. When I’m turned into the manticore, I feel like there are two parts of me. I have my monster side, which feels fierce and angry. Then I have my human side, which is horrified by that part of me. I fear I haven’t been as effective in combat because of it.”
Greta looked puzzled. “I do not have that strange dichotomy. I would suggest that you stop fighting your nature. Your instincts for combat will be your strength. Do not fight them. Relish the power of your body.”
“I see…” Persephone said, considering it. “Thanks. Perhaps we can practice and you can show me how to fight with my natural weapons sometime?”
“That could be fun. I’ve probably been getting fat sitting around here.”
“Only in the best places,” I said, nuzzling my wife’s neck.
“Thank you,” Persephone said, this time reaching out the correct hand to shake Greta’s remaining arm. Greta reached out to take her hand, but Persephone suddenly disappeared. I looked over and saw Emily asleep at the table, a fork full of cake in her hand.
Laughing, I pulled up my phone and checked to see if the plans were complete for what we’d need to stabilize the monastery so we could get in. The weird googly-eyed paperclip informed me that it had been finished.
I sat the others down and explained to them what we would need to do. Basically, it was pretty simple. The clip – Clippy, it called itself – had calculated out where the devices would be, so we didn’t even need to figure that out for ourselves. Then all we had to do was get there, plant the device and move to the next. Once they were all done, I would just tell Clippy when we were ready to go in and it would take care of the rest.
I’m not sure how the devices would work, exactly. I know nanites were involved somehow. And something about spooky quantum stuff. The word muons was in there too. Look, I’m not a physics person. My nerd-level study of things stops at magic. I can write a doctoral level paper on the differences between the schools of magic. I can create new spellforms from scratch to do things I need – obviously this takes a lot of time and work – but I don’t know quantum physics from a hole in the ground. Maybe it’s something I’ll have to learn eventually. But give me a break, I’m far too young to be that knowledgeable about more than one subject, no matter how much Daddy says I could do it if I tried.
For their parts, the guys understood the mission. “So we fight to the marked buildings, push this little box onto these world anchors and press the button?” Gregor asked.
“That’s pretty much it,” I affirmed.
“Question, will explosions nearby damage the anchors or these devices?” Terry asked.
I posed the question to Clippy. “Both the World Anchors and the quantum stabilization bridges are made to withstand a theoretical blast of fourteen megatons or more at point blank range,” came the answer. Fourteen megatons? I wasn’t sure how that ranked exactly on the hierarchy, but we were talking nuclear bomb magnitudes of energy.
“It should be fine,” I told the others. No need to explain the finer points of nuclear warfare to them. It was already getting late again, and we needed to get moving.
“Okay, cool,” Terry said. “I’ve been reading up on some of the cool stuff your people make and it sounds like a lot of it is pretty delicate.”
I nodded. “Fair enough,” I said. “Any other questions?”
“That’s really all we have to do?” Burin asked. “Dealing with magic of this nature is really complex. It seems too simple.”
“It’s pretty complicated, actually,” I said. “It’s just that the box has made devices that do the hard part for us. If you want, you can have Clippy explain what it’s doing to you.”
“I might do that,” he said. “How long before we go?”
I looked at the sleeping Emily. “Let’s give her twenty more minutes, then we should get going.”
We fought our way through the work camp around the monastery once more. We took out another group of snipers. The highlights of that fight include Gregor catching a bullet, Terry killing two of them nearly simultaneously firing from the hip while chatting with Persephone and Burin flying high into the air and doing a falling axe slash on “the one wearing the red cap”, which ended up covering my shoes in blood.
At another point, we were ambushed by another group of yetis who were growling and snarling at us. Gregor did kind of a flash step thing so he could kill as many as possible before Terry had a chance to ruin the skins.
And then Nebbie told us what they had been saying. Apparently, the other yetis we’d killed had been their mates, and they were out for revenge. I felt kind of bad about that. Gregor and Terry didn’t seem to care. Burin… well, his response was, “They said all of that with a few grunts and snarls? The subtleties of language never cease to amaze me.”
And then we got attacked by some crazy lady in the weirdest spiked armor. I mean, it was seriously hideous. I mean, socks and sandals level bad. Yet Gregor seemed interested in figuring out how to create a new fighting style that utilized something like that. He figured he could kill enemies just by somersaulting at them. Weirdo.
And don’t even get me started on the bleeding stone golems. No, I mean literally bleeding. The damn things had stigmata. WHO MAKES SOMETHING LIKE THAT?
And, while I’m ranting about things… why did Terry and Gregor feel the need to light EVERYTHING on fire? Even Persephone noticed. “Is it always like this?” she asked.
“No,” Burin answered. “Sometimes, there’s no logic behind what they do. Don’t worry though. The rest of us are normal.” And then he opened a nearby door, peeked his head inside and shouted, “Hello?!” into the dark room. Part of me kinda wishes something large had bitten him for that.
We approached the front of the monastery just after nightfall, and the ghostly image of Rasputin appeared before us. Terry immediately, and possibly reflexively, flung a blini at him. It sailed right through his incorporeal image. The Mad Monk looked annoyed. “I can’t hit him,” Terry said. “Anyone else want to try?”
“It’s not good to waste food,” Burin chided.
Rasputin ignored our insanity. “You have proven yourselves dangerous fighters. But I grow stronger as my mother grows weaker. In a short while, I will be unstoppable! And there’s nothing you can do about it! Primitives like you will never reach me, because you could never comprehend the genius of the great Tesla, and Radimir made sure you’ll never resurrect Miloslav!” He began to laugh as he gloated, certain in his superiority.
I was rather annoyed. I’d been dealing with my friends’ bullshit all day. I wasn’t dealing with Rasputin’s as well. “First,” I said, “We have your daughter.” I wasn’t certain, but it was a bluff worth playing.
And it paid off. “I will take her back shortly, once I have taken my mother’s throne. Which you will never st-“
“AND SECOND,” I said, pulling out my phone as I interrupted him. “Cortana, do it now.” Primitives? I WOULD SHOW HIM WHO WAS PRIMITIVE. He had the knowledge of Tesla on his side. I had the knowledge of Kyle O’Halloran on mine. We would see who had the last laugh.
Nothing happened for a second. Then there was a crackle of electricity as purple lightning arced from the World Anchors to the ghostly monastery. “THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!” Rasputin shrieked. “You’re primitives from one of Mother’s little project worlds! There’s no way you can defy the technology of Earth!”
“You’ve miscalculated,” I said, grinning as the monastery completely stabilized before us.
“KILL THEM!” he roared.
Three figures came out of the door to the monastery. Burin charged to intercept. “Keep your minds focused! They’re nosferatu!” he warned as he slashed at the one at the fore. Terry fired over his head and embedded four bullets in the vampire’s skull, killing it as my fireball scorched the other two.
One of the remaining nosferatu, shocked at his comrade’s fall, sped past Burin and pointed at Terry. “Kill that witch!” he commanded, pointing at me as the third attacked Burin.
Oh, crap.
Persephone transformed into a manticore and did what she could to get between me and Terry, whose eyes had glazed over as his mind lost the fight with the vampire’s domination. “Get the vampire!” she told Gregor.
Gregor nodded and quickly dropped the dominating vampire. Rasputin cast two spells, first ordering Gregor to attack us – he resisted – and then zapping Burin with powerful necromantic magic – he did not resist, and I could see him in a ton of pain.
With the vampire down, Terry barely managed to resist the ongoing command and narrowly missed shooting Persephone as the gun went off while he swung it towards the ground. Whew. That was close.
Persephone wasn’t taking a chance and tried to grasp him with her tail, but he managed to dodge. “Percy! It’s fine!” he shouted.
Gregor dashed forward, teleporting to help Burin. The two of them dropped the final vampire in seconds. Rasputin, shocked by our capacity for violence, tried finishing off Burin, but cast the wrong spell, leaving him barely alive. Burin smirked. “I’m okay,” he reassured us.
Rasputin growled. “You think you’ve won?! I still have an edge! On this world, only people who are from here can invite in the denizens of other planes. I’ve made a pact with a Szuriel, the Horseman of War, in preparation for my ascendance to power! She has agreed to provide me with armies for my glorious conquest of innumerable planets! I cannot use them here, as the god of this place will protect the natives from outsiders, but you’re not from here and he won’t lift a finger to help you!”
He raised his hand and several hundred daemons – genthodaemons, the foot soldiers of Abaddon’s armies – appeared around us. We might have been in trouble. But then I saw a glow, that appeared to be coming from my forehead. “Lyriana?” Burin asked. “Why is there a glow that looks like two perpendicular lines on your forehead?”
“That is the mark where the priest anointed her forehead with the Oil of Catechumens during her baptism,” a voice said. There was an angel standing next to me. It was a powerful one – a planetar, the generals of celestial armies. “It marks her as a native of this world, though I must admit, I cannot find her on our rolls. Nor can I find the resonance of the soul of the priest who anointed her.”
“That’s a long story,” I said. “I haven’t been born yet. And I don’t think he has either.”
“What?” the angel asked.
“We came here through some weird time travel via the Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga.”
The angel considered my words. “I see. I am willing to accept that, especially from one of such unparalleled beauty.” I found myself blushing. Mom had warned me that all angels would find me extremely attractive for some reason due to our family lineage, but it was weird having such a glorious being say so in person.
“Thank you,” I said meekly. I’ve been complimented and hit on by literally hundreds of people, but that might have been the first time I really felt embarrassed by it, at the very least since I was young girl. It was a new and weird feeling.
He drew a horn and blew it, causing an entire legion of Movanic Devas wielding great flaming swords to appear. “We cannot interfere in whatever it is that is transpiring between you mortals. But leave the daemons to us. This is Earth and they are not welcome here!” the great angel shouted, with the other angels roaring in agreement.
I thanked the massive angel with a kiss on the cheek – because when do you ever get a chance to do that? – and we headed inside. “Your planet is weird,” Terry said, once we were inside.
I couldn’t argue. It probably was, in the grand scheme of the cosmos.
Emily went over to Burin. “You don’t look too good,” she said to him.
“I’ve felt better,” the dwarf admitted.
“I’m sorry,” Emily said, hugging him. Before my eyes, he began looking better. I think she had cast another spell without thinking about it. Terry grabbed out the nanite gun and injected him a couple times. He immediately began looking hale and hearty once more.
Before we left the vestibule, I cast a spell to surround myself with illusory copies. If Terry got mind controlled again, I wasn’t risking getting shot. Then we headed inside.
Well, it turns out that my paranoia paid off. We entered and faced off against a ghost. This particular entity was of a type known as a crucifixion spirit, and with a point of its finger, it ripped Terry’s soul from his body and began crucifying it.
So I hit it with a barrage of spiked balls of force. Which obviously irritated it, because it then pointed at me. Or, well, not me, but one of my doubles. So Lyriana one, crazy ghost zero. It didn’t get another chance because Gregor then punched the ghost to death. Or second death. However that works.
We healed up – Terry was pretty shaken – and moved deeper into the building, coming to some kind of chamber that had to have been beautiful once, but was terribly run down. There were alcoves along the walls with large statues of various saints. The only two I recognized were Boris and Gleb, but in my defense, it’s not like my parents raised me Russian Orthodox. I mean, we’re Roman Catholics, after all. Also, most of the statues were pretty worn down.
I looked up the room, noting cracks and dirt along the beautiful mosaic on the floor, but my eyes fixed on the form of someone seated in the corner. It was an old woman, sweat dripping from her brow and blood spattered all over her clothing.
“It’s about time you got here,” she said. “Your distraction was most timely. My fool of a son turned his back. I’d been waiting for that for days. Now be dears and help me up. I fear my ordeal has left me a bit weak. I am an old woman, after all.”