To read the previous adventures of Sabine, click here. To support us on Patreon, click here. The story continues below. … Nervous and disgusted, Sabine raised the athame at the encroaching horde. The alcohol still
To read the previous adventures of Sabine, click here. To support us on Patreon, click here. The story continues below.
…
Nervous and disgusted, Sabine raised the athame at the encroaching horde. The alcohol still flowing through their bodies made her enemies stumbling and sluggish. But, still exhausted from the brutal fight with Macington, she feared her ability to escape from the house. She muttered toward her ring. “Well, now what do I do?”
Silfde’s houseguests outnumber you twenty to one—ten to one if you can convince the lug over there to set aside his personal vendetta, Dahkhal said. They won’t stay dead no matter how many times you strike them down.
Between grit teeth she asked, “Can they make more undead by just biting people?”
No, they aren’t that kind. They can only reproduce by conventional, human methods. Dahkhal scoffed. As if this party needed another cliché.
“Don’t be disgusting.”
It was only at that point Flailock Von Macington fully regained his feet, scowled in her direction, and said, “What are you on about, girl?”
“Listen up, big guy, I know you despise me,” Sabine said. “But it looks like the spell didn’t work on you, so I’m pretty sure they consider you fair game right now. Stop trying to kill me until we can get out of here.”
The giant turned toward her and started to snarl, but didn’t get the chance before Sabine ran for the front door. Several of Silfde’s guests stepped into her path. She sliced through them, but even as their flesh yielded to her blade, they showed no sign of weakness or pain.
I don’t even know what to recommend, the whole point of this job was to stop the damned spell from going off, Dahkhal said.
By that point, as she slashed into the gray-skinned undead only for them to almost instantly reform themselves, Sabine had forgotten she was even on an assignment. She tried to just push past, but two of the undead got ahold of handfuls of her hair and yanked her back. With a shout, she slashed at hands and severed fingers, but with each drunken fool she briefly incapacitated, others took their place.
“There’s no escape, pixie girl.” In spite of his rotted state, Silfde still slurred his words as he closed in. “The gods of festivities are calling for their sacrifice.”
With a whip around, Sabine thrust the athame into Silfde’s gut. Struct’s son let out a shout that transitioned into a belch. She tried to yank the sword out for another slash, but Silfde grabbed ahold of the weapon by its handle and held it in his belly with a steely grip.
With a hiss, he said, “It’s mine now.”
Across the house, Sabine heard a yell. “I’ve reached the balcony! If I can get to town and bring back reinforcements, I will. But our duel isn’t over!”
If Flailock could escape, maybe she could too. Sabine released the blade and took off for the door.
Dahkhal asked, You’re abandoning your finest weapon?
“You couldn’t figure out a way to stop these guys,” she said. “We need out of here. Then we can regroup. Unless you have any better ideas.”
… I’ll let you know if one comes to me.
The lack of insult or sarcasm in Dahkhal’s tone frightened Sabine as much as the undead. With a last sprint, she threw herself toward the front door. Powerful as they were, Silfde’s friends still stumbled and struggled to keep up. Sabine reached the entrance, wrenched it open, and ran.
Straight into the fuzzy face of Struct’s gigantic devil mole.
Sabine yelped, leapt back, and got a brief look into the tiny, red slits that served as the creature’s eyes. It snarled at her as it opened its mouth. First came a foul stench, then came a powerful thrust of magical energy. The force of the strike knocked Sabine off her feet and blew her backwards into the encroaching horde. A moment after the shock, Silfde’s friends grabbed her tight by her splayed arms. Deacon Struct stepped out of his mole’s mouth, his hands tucked behind his back, a smirk on his face, and his cursed scars shifting about.
From the head of the undead legion behind her, Sabine heard confusion creep into Silfde’s voice as he asked, “Dad? What’re you doing here? And why didn’t the doorman stop you—” When he paused, she turned to look at him. He held the athame high, but lowered it as he considered, then mumbled, “Right. Right.”
As she kicked and tried to free herself from the grips of her attackers, Sabine called out, “Look, this job was clearly over my pay grade! Gimmie a hand here?”
Struct laughed as he closed the distance. Silfde’s horde hissed and made clawing motions toward him. The deacon just leveled a glare and said, “Son, tell your friends I’ll just be a moment.”
Silfde uttered an inebriated grunt Sabine couldn’t make out as words, but the party did seem to back off the old man.
Still in the midst of struggle, Sabine said, “Hey, come on, I know I couldn’t stop the spell, but maybe we can still stop this thing if you can just help.”
“Oh, I’ll help all right.” Struct closed the distance between them. “I struggled to piece it together for a while, you know. My work was being repeatedly thwarted by some drunkard mercenary no one knew any history of. But I picked up some new tricks when I came in contact with the divine, and it all started to make sense.” He reached toward Sabine’s extended left arm and plucked the ring that held Dahkhal right off her finger.
As he did, Sabine heard a shuddered utter of, Oh gods.
“What the—hey! Don’t mess with that, my first husband gave me that ring—”
“Did he know of its power? I doubt it.” Struct rolled the ring around in his finger and Sabine heard a rhythmic thrum of, Ow, ow, ow. “The power of a god undying lays contained within this tiny ring; I can sense it. It is wasted in your hands, but my master will grant me a great blessing when I offer it to him.”
“So, what, this whole job was just a setup?” The revelation made Sabine’s blood run so cold the fight slipped from her.
“I saw you slay a fae queen at the seat of her power. I needed to lure you into something even more perilous and implacable: a crazed, drunken teenage house party.” Struct closed one hand tight around the ring and raised the other. Up from his knuckles rose three curved blades formed from magic. “Your purpose has been served, girl. Silfde, when I’m finished, you and your friends can lap up the mess.”
Dahkhal’s mental voice rose to a shout. Damn it, Sabine, fight harder. I don’t know what would be worse—dying for good, or being digested by his god for all eternity!
“Working on it!” With renewed rage and energy, Sabine kicked and fought back against Silfde’s friends. But her desperate flails just met flesh that was at once rotted and unyielding. As Struct raised his blades, she cringed, grit her teeth, and shut her eyes tight.
A monstrous roar stopped Struct in his tracks. His devil mole thrashed about for a moment, then started a fast, desperate dig.
“What?” Struct turned to his creature. “What is it, Derry? What’s happened?”
The beast tore through the earth until soon, only his back haunches were visible, a flail buried inside one of them.
“Oh hells, you’re my ride out.” Struct leapt and grabbed two fistfuls of the mole’s fur as it started to disappear from view. The deacon cast a last look toward his son. “By the way, Silfde, your little party’s over. Send your friends home and go to bed.”
In the time it took the boy to drag out a complaint of, “Awww, but Dad,” the magic dissipated. The fleshy tones returned to everyone’s skin and the iron grips that held Sabine weakened. Because, of course, no drunken teenage party, no matter how ultimate, can survive the command of an irate parent.
Sabine, you felt how damned fast these things tear through dirt. There was something in Dahkhal’s voice Sabine hadn’t heard since she first trapped him in the jellyfish body: terror. Get over here—get over here now—
With a lean forward and a toss back, Sabine smashed her elbows into the two that held her in place. With a whirl around, she delivered a sucker-punch into the again-human Silfde’s face. He shouted, grabbed at his bloody nose, and the athame slipped from his grip. At a sprint, Sabine grabbed the weapon and rushed for the hole as the devil mole and Struct disappeared down it. For just a moment, she saw Flailock Von Macington, good as his word, on the hole’s opposite side.
Oh gods, I’m—Dahkhal’s words went faint for a moment. Sick. The magic—Silence took him again. Interfering with… connection. Need… hurry… or else—
With only the shimmering red light of the athame to guide her, Sabine rushed through the underground passage. Both Dahkhal’s words and the digging of the devil mole grew ever more distant and quieter. But if she could just catch up—if she could just reach that thing—
At the same time the mole’s digging went silent to her, Sabine came to a stuttering stop in the center of a large chamber. She raised the athame for light and found underground tunnels that extended into at least a half dozen directions. With squinted eyes and a racing heart, she searched the openings for a sign of freshness, but nothing was apparent.
Exhausted and beaten, Sabine fell to her knees as the last of the noise in the underground died away. For the first time in years, she was completely, utterly, alone.
…
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