36 The Grim Awakens

THREADFIN FELL TO his knees on the stone steps of the angelic temple with jarring force. He felt Pole grab him, shouting in his ear, but he couldn’t understand the words. His sight had vanished, and it felt as though he didn’t belong to his battered, rotten carcass of a body.

Perhaps a part of him had felt that way for a long time, but he had grown fond of it all the same. After all, it had been his home for many years, and he didn’t fancy becoming a wandering soul. I knew this would happen, as soon as I let him touch my power. This is my own doing. It had been a risk, but whether worth taking or not remained to be seen.

His sight returned, and he found he was on hands and knees, retching. Issuing from his tattered lips wasn’t the usual fare one would have expected. Dozens of beetles fell out of his mouth at first, then hundreds. They clogged his throat, dropping from his nostrils and mouth. A fortunate thing a viral didn’t need to breathe. All the same, he felt his eyes widen to painful proportions, as he realised what was happening.

You bastard, Grim! You dirty-hoary-old-selfish-conniving-shadowy bastard!

Cries erupted around him as the last of the beetles fell from his open mouth. A shaky Threadfin rose with his friend’s aid. He couldn’t help but notice Pole’s pallid, not to mention terror-stricken, face. You’d swear he was the one with beetles exiting every orifice. Well, perhaps not every orifice, thank the Spectrum above, but close enough.

As bad as it had been for him, Volcanus was doing worse. Being smothered in carnivorous beetles would do that, Threadfin supposed, angel or not. Adal, Virtue, and Beezer were using their magics, struggling to free the angel of the bugs, but the damage was done.

The last of the beetles fell dead, carpeting the ground about the ancient’s feet. Volcanus, with a sweeping of his wings, sent Virtue and Adal hurtling far. A spear of light then struck Beezer, who managed to deflect it in time. The force of it, however, sent the old viral crashing to the red dirt.

The Grim, in his new body, turned to look upon Threadfin, as the vampires finally clashed with the angelic ranks. Within the nearby battle, lightning struck, and vicious tornadoes ripped through the milling throng of combatants.

Threadfin searched for his own power, and found it wasn’t there. He fumbled in vain, seeking something of his magic. It was gone. Not blocked or warded.

Gone. All of it.

‘What have you done?’ he whispered, panic rising, looking up at the Grim, who was now in possession of the oldest of all angels and Threadfin’s magic to boot.

Volcanus laughed, but with the voice of the Grim. ‘Your time is over, Todder. What need have I of becoming Rasnal Nalrost a second time? I did all that a thousand years ago. No, no, it’s time for something new.’ He caught sight of Adal climbing to his feet, and growled, ‘Where is the Crystal Sword, angel? Where is my destiny? I warn you, if you try to deny m—’

Three vampires leapt at him and the Grim whirled, still unused to his new body, stumbling about. His wings flapped as his arms flailed trying to get to grips with his assailants. The vampires were everywhere, breaching the lines in numerous places.

To his shame and shock, Threadfin found himself gibbering, his body shuddering as Pole tried to comfort him. Like a child in his father’s arms. ‘My power, it’s all gone. Pod, it’s bloody well gone. He’s taken it.’

‘It’s alright, lad,’ he heard his friend say. ‘We need to get out of here. This is no place for either o’ us now. It’s alright.’

‘You don’t understand. He’s taken it. All of it!’

Adal took hold of Threadfin by one arm, and Pole by the second, dragging him up the steps to the temple doors. Virtue was now involved in the battle. Vampires fell to shining blades, colliding with feathered wings hard as steel. Angels were falling too, throats ripped out by bloodied jaws, flesh torn by muscled arms and powerful claws, angelic souls devoured. The battle was savage with no quarter given by either side.

As they hauled Threadfin through the temple’s doors, the mage’s last glimpse of the fight was of a large figure approaching Volcanus. An angel of equal height and strength, with long white hair and lighter coloured wings than Volcanus.

Wormwood.

The doors shut as the Grim and Wormwood faced each other. The battle raged around them, while both stood like pillars of stone in a raging sea.

‡

‘I’M NOT A MAGE, ANYMORE,’ whined Threadfin, staring at the white stone floor and walls, feeling lost and small. ‘I’m a walking talking corpse, like you always said I was, remember?’

‘You know,’ said Pole, ‘right now I don’t care to. I said a lot o’ stuff I didn’t mean. You know that, right?’

Threadfin glanced at him, feeling glad he wasn’t alone. ‘I know ... and well, you know.’

Pole stood there with a face as solemn as could be. ‘Yeah,’ he muttered. ‘Look, we’ll find a way to fix this.’

‘I don’t think there is a way.’

Adal grabbed him by both shoulders, shoving Pole out of the way in his fury. It wasn’t an anger directed at Threadfin, or so he hoped. It was just anger, pure white and brilliant, the angel’s form aglow with it. ‘The Crystal Sword. It’s here inside this temple.’

‘I can’t help you,’ muttered the former mage. ‘I have no power. He took it all. Didn’t you see?’

‘Oh, but he didn’t take all of it,’ said Adal, fixing him with a hard stare. ‘He took the power of the Aura, but magic still resides within you. It is the magic that formed you in the first place, and the magic that maintains you. Otherwise, you would just be plain dead.’

‘But, but I can’t feel it. I, I can’t touch it.’

‘That’s because you’ve been tapping into the Aura’s power for so long, you never properly developed your own. You’ve seen it though, haven’t you? You’ve used it too, perhaps on instinct, but you can reach it if you try.’

Threadfin recalled the monstrous being, a dragon called the Watcher, his magic made real to him in a place between worlds. It seemed like so long ago.

Adal tapped one of the horns on Threadfin’s face. ‘You’ve been marked by it too, and it has changed you. You just never learned to control it. You couldn’t, not with the Aura’s power in the way. However, I saw you transform in Zalanthya. If I don’t miss my guess, it wasn’t the first time either. Now that the Aura is gone, you will have to relearn everything.’

‘Well, I guess that’s not so bad,’ Threadfin muttered. ‘Never realised I’d gotten so attached to it. I suppose in the meantime I’ll have to make do.’ He had a feeling if he did awaken the Watcher within him, it would take him over completely just as the Grim had done. He needed to train first, to relearn everything as Adal suggested.

‘We’ve both seen difficult times before,’ said Pole, ‘and we’ve always come through the other side, lad.’

‘Now, the Sword has no power of its own,’ said Adal, letting go of Threadfin. ‘It’s just a vessel for the Aura. The Grim must not get hold of it. If he does, he can transfer the aura’s power to it, and possessing Volcanus as he does, he would prove unstoppable. He cannot use the aura’s power as you did. He needs the Sword to activate it first.’

‘This is what the Grim planned all along, isn’t it?’ said Pole.

Adal nodded. ‘Very likely. His exact plot remains unknown, but it’s clear that what just occurred was by design.’

‘And Wormwood?’ Threadfin asked.

Adal ran his hands through his hair, his half-folded wings flapping nervously. ‘He will try to destroy his brother. If he can, he will use the sword to kill him, and take the aura’s power. Either one may try to enter this temple, although I will deny them for as long as I can.’

Pole looked somewhat lost and bewildered. The breather was out of his depth, and knew it.

Then again so am I. What can I possibly do to stop such beings and such power?

‘Threadfin,’ said Adal. ‘We are old friends you and I. Do you trust me?’

For the first time, the answer came quick and honest. ‘Yes, with all my shrivelled heart, yes,’ but then he added, ‘I still hate you though.’

Adal smiled, and its warmth filled him with hope and a longing to please. ‘I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.’

The angel was nothing like the personae he had adopted in the past, and it gave Threadfin pause. He’d begun to believe angels were no longer worthy of worship. Adal, in the most irritating fashion he could manage, was challenging this new belief.

‘You know, I never lied when I told you that you were my favourite,’ the angel added. ‘Always, Fin. Now, please listen to me. You have one task. Get the Crystal Sword.’

‘And then what?’

‘Stab Volcanus.’

‘You want him to do what now?’ Pole cried, coming to as though from a daze. ‘You can’t ask him to do something like that? He’ll never get close enough.’

The temple shuddered, dust raining on their heads as cries erupted from outside. The angel glanced upwards, and then back at the doors. ‘I would do it myself, but I’m afraid I am needed out there. The vampires are nearing the doors. If they get inside, it’s over.

‘You must get the sword and stab him. With the aura’s power returned to the crystal, you can destroy the Grim with ease.’

‘I will try,’ said Threadfin in a low voice, uncertain if he could do anything. Podral Pole was just as equipped to perform this task as he was.

Adal pointed down a long well-lit corridor of the temple. ‘You will find it within the innermost chamber, unguarded. The Aura chose you, Fin, as its guardian. Like the Shathra Stone, it is a piece of the Spectrum, which means the Spectrum chose you. This is what I choose to believe. Now, it is your duty to honour that guardianship.’

Adal turned back to the temple doors, which shuddered from an impact. ‘You had best hurry. I do not know how long I can hold them off.’

As Threadfin and Pole turned and headed inside the temple complex, the building shook, as though giants were beating the walls with iron mallets.

With the lack of power between himself and Pole, it might as well have been giants.

‡

ADAL HAD TO FIGHT HIS way back outside, forcing the vampires to retreat further down the temple steps. He and Virtue stood side by side outside the entrance, soul-shards swinging as the tide of vampires washed against its steps. Both the Grim and Wormwood were locked in a magical contest, blows often striking the temple itself, decimating both vampires and angels before it. Those blows were not accidental as Wormwood sought to destroy the temple along with his brother. He knew the Sword was inside.

Hundreds of angels swarmed above the heads of the enemy. Vampires couldn’t fly, but they could leap. There were several angels snatched from the air in such a fashion, and dispatched.

A double line of angelic warriors held the top of the stairs once more, their order restored, wings forming shields as they stabbed with long spears at the hissing horde. The elder viral, Beezer, was among them. He flung his viralic power in the form of dark spears or bolts of black lightning. Any vampire foolish enough to come close was burned to ash, but the old viral was looking weary.

During a brief respite - the tide of vampires flinching back, preparing for a renewed assault - Adal glanced at Virtue, who smiled back. ‘It has been a long time,’ she said. ‘It may be that this is our last day. I am sorry, brother.’

He reached out and touched her shoulder, and then drew her into an embrace. ‘You have nothing to be sorry for, sister. You did everything you had to for our family, for the Spectrum.’

She pulled back from him. ‘As a sister, I have not proven worthy, but today we stand side by side again.’

He leaned in and kissed her forehead. ‘You have always been worthy.’

‘Rue doesn’t think so,’ she muttered.

Adal felt a pang of sorrow, and of fear, at the mention of her name. ‘She ... is here?’

‘She was. Pan came with her, but they left soon after. She came for a particular artefact. I warned her none were to be removed and I ... tried to stop her, but she’s head-strong like her father.’ She offered him a meaningful stare.

Adal winced. ‘Yes, I know.’ At least she is not here to witness this. At least, my daughter is safe. For now.

They both faced forward and marched into the fray. The ranks of angels did not turn or take notice of them, but still divided to let them pass, sensing them. Adal issued a cry and dove back into the fray, his sister at his side, and they began to drive the vampires back further, one step at a time. And yet, the plain below was a seething mass of elongated bodies and distorted limbs and fangs. Too many, even for them. Wormwood sent another blast of white fire, the Grim dodging it. The blow struck the front rank of angels, their cries snuffed out. It was followed by several more.

Hurry, Fin, my old friend, thought Adal, as he took the head off a particularly large vampire with his blade, only to be faced by two larger ones. Hurry!

‡

WORMWOOD ADVANCED, but the Grim, wearing the form of Volcanus, blocked his path time and again. Within, the angelic soul grappled with the shadow attempting to dislodge his hold, but the Grim was no fool. A thousand bites from the beetles had ensured he had infected every part of Volcanus. There was no getting rid of him.

They should have all learned this simple fact, by now,’ the shadow thought. I am the Grim Master and Reaper of souls, and all shall bow before me, or wallow in grief and fear.

A horrendous clash between the angelic siblings followed, as they tangled with one another. Beetles issued from Volcanus’ mouth, ears, and nose, spilling onto the ground to swarm towards Wormwood. The brother of Volcanus leapt back with a string of curses to shame the darkest of the Fallen.

He was heedless of his followers, his scythe sweeping through their number on the backswing, as he carelessly trampled them in his haste to escape the insects. Then lightning struck several times, burning the beetles black. Wormwood advanced again.

It was as the Grim had planned it. From the scorched earth of Wormwood’s lightning strikes, and the smouldering carapaces of thousands of beetles, his Torments rose. Those which remained to him at least. Todder, the meddling fool, had already cost him three.

Six arose from the burnt ashes. Led by Cadaver, the horns on their necks and shoulders lengthening, they wasted no time getting down to business. The Grim turned and headed towards the Temple, leaving his Torments to deal with Wormwood and his pets. Volcanus had known of another way in, and now he knew it too.

He would find the Sword and end Todder and those pesky angels. To think he had created vampires in imitation of fallen angels in the first place. Now one of them dared use his creation against him? Well, vampires had been a failure, their viciousness uncontrollable and he’d had to inter them in a prison below ground. Reviving them from their sleep had also proven a mistake. Vampires had no loyalty.

All Todder’s fault. He’d given the fool a chance at greatness, to be part of something magnificent. Now, the undead mage would pay the price all, who ignored the Grim, paid.

I just need that dratted sword first.

He could sense the power of the Aura within him, but he could not touch it. However, with the Sword, and the body of Volcanus, he would challenge Astra Dar and the Darkness itself.

He would meet Lucifer, the prince of Tartaros, and carve him in two.

If he could just reach the Sword.