He didn’t and he wouldn’t. Before I could speak another word, Gatsby’s hands poised in two L-shapes. They lit up as he chanted then he pointed them at me, sending two blasts of power at me. I rolled and escaped the first blast, but the second connected with my back as I ran away. I fell forward, my body momentarily paralyzed as it processed the white-hot pain that licked up the muscles from my lower back and up my right side. A gush of blood rushed down my back. My cheek connected hard to the pine-covered ground but I could barely feel the multitude of prickly pine needle ends.
“That’s it, Chevalier,” Master Wu cried victoriously to Gatsby. “Destroy him as he would do to you.”
My breath returned to me, and my back now screamed in pain, but my brain could process again and I had to get up. Rolling onto my side, I saw my brother come to stand over me. Even if I managed to get to my feet, I couldn’t run from another power blast with him on top of me like this.
Gatsby’s hands were bright white, a strange red tinge at the edge of his power I’d never noticed before. Large chunks of hair had escaped his pony tail and wildly framed his face. His light gray eyes seemed almost whited out from the reflection of his light. His shoulders heaved from the adrenaline flooding his body. I knew he had always wanted to be on top, and with me out of the way for good, I was one less point of comparison to cause him strife.
My eyes moved past him and Master Wu to Emma whose mouth was open. She looked like she was screaming, but I couldn’t hear her.
Like a wound being sliced open, a tear opened behind Emma. It was like a portal, but this was forced, wrong, and looking at it made me sick. It was like watching some kind of surgery as it started as a sliver several feet above Emma’s head then slowly ripped down, opening like a ripping membrane, into the Stygian.
CHAPTER FORTY
When I couldn’t bear to look at it anymore, I focused up at Gatsby who had yet to end me with his force.
“What are you waiting for?” Master Wu screeched. “Obey me at once. Kill him before he kills you.”
The glow in Gatsby’s hands dimmed and I could see the conflict in his eyes now. Before I could consider the possibility my words had finally penetrated, Gatsby turned toward Master Wu.
“You see, the problem, Master Wu,” he said with deadly calm, red lightning jumping in his hands and eyes. “Is that Calan would never destroy me given the chance. That is, unless you had ordered him to under no uncertain terms. Just as you are doing so to me now.”
Master Wu straightened, his lips thinning until they disappeared. “Chevalier, I demand you obey me at once. If you do not obey me, you will never receive your lost soul. Do you want to put your soul at jeopardy?”
“That’s the thing. Calan here says we are in possession of our souls and have always been so.” The lightning flashed brighter as if to intimidate Master Wu.
It was strange to see. Even discovering the Order he believed in was a lie, Gatsby still had his powers. In lieu of realizing the Luxis were deceitful and manipulative, Gatsby seemed more powerful than ever. How could that be? I asked myself. Then again Gatsby always struggled to obey, it was probably true it was never the Order he unfailingly believed in like I had. It made me wonder, what was his belief so strongly grounded in?
The clash of swords could still be heard in the background. No one had yet noticed the tear in the world. I pushed up to my feet, secure that Gatsby had moved his attention elsewhere. Yet Master Wu and Gatsby still stood between Emma and me. I hoped she knew not to run into the fray. Behind Wu’s shoulder, she paced back and forth, recognizing the dog fight she didn’t run to get in the middle of.
Master Wu’s face hardened and I caught the side of Gatsby’s humorless smile. “So the old boy is right after all? See the one thing I do know is Calan is infuriatingly decent, so who am I to doubt his word? If your most loyal dog won’t heel, I’ve got to think you may have done something to betray his trust. Your word on the other hand….” he trailed off before releasing a blast of power at Master Wu.
“Emma, look out,” I cried.
With quick fortitude, Master Wu threw his hands up and with an invisible force, the blast was redirected long enough for Wu to duck out of its way. Our Masters used magic but their powers were no match to that of their wards. For our Masters to cast, it required great preparation and the combined efforts of our Masters to call powerful magic forth.
Emma gasped and stumbled back toward the tear she had not yet seen. As if sensing something unnatural was near, Emma slowly turned toward the open wound that led to the Stygian. It glowed red and what looked like poisonous gas seeped out from the torn membrane between planes. I had to get to her.
Undeterred, Gatsby rushed forward, throwing punches at Master Wu. Wu ducked this way and that, taking most of Gatsby’s hits. “Did you lie to us? Did you tell me I was a little monster, then beat me when I wouldn’t play your made-up game? Tell me.” He was screaming now while pouring out all the anger he possessed. Wu began to resort to using small bursts of his power to fight Gatsby off. Blood vessels immediately popped in his eyes from the magical exertion. Gatsby held his hands up in an L-shape again to power up.
“No, Emma, no,” I cried, but as if in a trance, Emma stepped closer to the tear. I tried to get by Wu and Gatsby but another errant blast sent me face first into the ground. I scrambled back up, but then I saw it.
A grotesque, black, stick-thin limb stepped through the perverse portal before it was joined by the rest of its twisted body. The demon had to duck to get through the tear then straightened to a dizzying height of fifteen feet.
When the soul eaters appeared on our plane I was familiar with their accompaniment of sulfur rot and a disconcerting mist of both hot and cold. The Chevalier detected the presence of evil more acutely, the better to hunt it. The demon lord’s presence almost knocked me over. It wasn’t just hot and cold. The air froze as it burned. The smell of rotting meat and illness was overpowering.
Its body sickly glistened, tar-like goop dripping off in places. The thought of it touching Emma made my stomach turn over. The torso was considerably thicker and seemed to pulse and contort. For a moment I imagined I’d seen a hand press against its stomach from the inside out but when I looked again the impression was gone.
Emma’s head slowly tilted up until she met the burning eyes of what I could only surmise was the demon lord the prophecy has predicted. The coming darkness. The demon lord didn’t destroy souls, it enslaved them in the burning torment in its body, a perfect reflection of the Stygian embodied.
“Save the Propheros,” I heard Regina cry out distantly and the clang of swords increased with fury as the agents of Veritas made their way through the bottleneck.
Master Wu stumbled back from Gatsby but saw the agents running toward Emma. He almost missed Gatsby’s next assault which would have fried his scalp off. I tried to run by them again, but another blast shot in front of me, singeing my shirt.
“What are you waiting for, brother?” Gatsby yelled back at me.
With impatience I cried, “For you to stop trying to blow me away.”
With that Gatsby forced Wu back in a different direction clearing the path for me.
