The Hammer of War, Chapter 38

I had every intention of killing every living thing in the Riverside Lodge. That was the plan. But it was still morning, and it stood to reason that the place would be empty. Vampires were creatures of the night, thin-skinned and deathly allergic to sunlight, and most of the other things that crawled and slithered alongside them, other supernatural creatures, probably kept the same hours. It made sense to me. My instincts said the same, and they’d kept me alive this long.

I had scouted the Lodge before. Nothing moved inside. Nothing called it home, at least during the day. So there was no reason to waste more time. I let the thought go and turned my attention elsewhere.

There was the system. Always the system. New functions blinking to life when I wasn't looking.

There was one I hadn’t noticed before. Or maybe it was new. [Storied Unit].

The function was simple enough. I could pick any unit under my command and designate it as a [Story Unit]. Doing so would allow it to gain its own experience, develop knowledge, pick up traits and quirks like a man picks up scars. Weapons, armor, relics — I could buy and outfit them through the War Points I had gathered.

It was a tempting thing. Dangerous too.

The problem was choice. I could only make one [Story Unit] for now. One chance to do it right.

My first thought was the [Squiggoth]. Big bastard. Ugly as sin. Would have been a sight to see it grow smarter, meaner, stranger with every battle. I could see it clear in my mind — a monster draped in iron and blood, breaking cities underfoot. But I knew better. I let the thought die.

Still, I checked.

The system told me the Squiggoth could be upgraded. War Points could make it faster. Stronger. Tougher. I could mold it into a thing of nightmares if I wanted.

For now, I didn’t.

There was no rush. No desperate need.

The sun climbed higher outside the broken windows. Light pooled on the cracked sidewalk. The day stretched ahead, empty and waiting.

I moved on.

The fight ahead would be different.

Sebastian and the others knew about the [Blank] aura. Knew what it did. How it stripped the magic and life from anything that breathed too close. Helena had died because she hadn't known. That mistake wouldn’t happen again. They would have countermeasures ready. Traps. Tricks. They had lived long enough to gather all the wisdom the dead could not.

But they didn’t know everything.

They didn’t know I could summon an army.

Small, but real. Teeth and claws and iron in their hands. I would need to use them–the Nobz, the Cadians, the Carnifexes, the Drukhari Incubi, and the Squiggoth. Hold nothing back. Crush them before they figured out how deep the hole really was.

Still, it wasn’t certain. Not yet.

For all I knew, they were already gone. If they had any sense — and they likely did, having clung to life through centuries of blood and ruin — they would leave. Pack their things. Scatter like roaches when the light hit them. Leave me standing there with blood on my mind and no one to bleed.

It made me pause.

If they were gone, there was nothing to stay for. Nothing to kill. The Lodge would sit there rotting under the sun, empty of everything but old ghosts and broken promises.

And if they were gone — if they had run — maybe I ought to do the same.

Portland was my home, but I also knew that I couldn’t stay, mostly because all my friends and family were here–my parents, especially. And if this growth in strength continued, then I’d eventually become someone too powerful to ignore, which meant my enemies would look for weaknesses and, lo and behold, they’d find my parents. 

I needed to disappear too–at some point. 

There were other cities. New York wasn't far. I could walk if I had to. Wouldn't feel the miles. Wouldn’t feel anything.

The thought sat with me a while. Heavy and quiet. Like a knife I hadn't decided whether to draw or bury.

The wind shifted outside. Somewhere down the broken streets, a bottle rolled across the asphalt with a dry clatter and came to rest against the curb. I shook my head. Now wasn’t the time to be second-guessing. I would check the Riverside Lodge and if it was empty, then I would leave. Simple as that. What came after, I didn’t know.

My goal was clear once, back when dreams were cheap. Protector of humanity. Guardian of the common man against the things that crawled behind the curtain of night. That was the promise I made.

The truth was harder. I couldn’t even hold Portland. Couldn’t even keep my own city safe. I had barely saved my mother from Helena Stolas and even then only by the skin of my teeth. The world was too big. The dark too deep.

There was work to be done and I was not yet the thing needed to do it.

I spent the day wandering the woods that sprawled beyond the town's dying edges. I climbed trees slick with moss. Hauled fallen logs from where they rotted in the earth. Flipped boulders half-buried in the loam. I didn’t expect any of it to change me. I knew my limits. Physical effort had plateaued and would not carry me further unless I reached for things no human hand could grasp. I could bench a thousand kilograms if I found a way. Stack steel on steel until the earth sank beneath me.

But that wasn’t the point.

I moved because movement kept the mind from turning in on itself. I moved to keep the blade sharp.

When the light began to fail and the air cooled, I found a boulder smoothed by time and rain and sat there with the silence stretched around me. I watched the sky fold into night. The woods breathing slow and deep.

When the last of the light had fled the trees, I rose.

I crossed the empty fields and broken roads until the Riverside Lodge rose up ahead, skeletal against the sky. Same as before. Shuttered windows and doors hanging loose on their frames. No movement. No sound.

I stood a moment. Then I walked on.

For a breath I considered calling up all my units. Let them pour through the doors like the Orcs at Helm’s Deep. Break the place open with blood and steel and noise enough to wake the dead.

I let the thought die.

Too loud. Too crude. I didn’t think I’d need them anyway.

The door sagged on its frame. The wood swollen and cracked. I pressed a hand against it and it swung inward on rusted hinges, the sound sharp and thin like something dying.

Inside, the air was stale and thick. My boots fell soft on the warped floorboards. Echoes stirred in the gloom and fell silent. It was mostly dark. The kind of dark that settled into things and stayed there.

The sconces along the walls sputtered and burned. Their light was weak, yellowed with age. Some flickered and failed. Others clung to life, throwing long broken shadows across the hall.

The floor creaked under my weight. Dust rose in lazy spirals where I stepped. Somewhere deeper in the lodge, a door rattled against its frame. The sound carried through the empty halls like the voice of a man too long buried.

I willed the [Tau Rail Rifle] into my hands. It came with a whisper of displaced air. I held it at the ready. A note in the back of my mind to buy a blade next time. Something for when the shooting stopped.

The hall stood quiet.

The vampire that once guarded the main door was gone. No trace of him. No sentry. No watcher. The doors themselves sagged on their hinges, wide and empty.

I narrowed my eyes. I stepped forward.

I kicked the double doors open. They groaned and swung inward.

Beyond them was the ballroom.

Same as before. Tables laid out in long rows. Chairs tipped and crooked. Glasses half-filled. Bottles lined up like soldiers at attention. The stink of old blood thick in the air.

But the guests were gone.

No vampires. No witches. No monsters lurking in the dark corners. Only dust and silence.

Almost.

At the center of the room, a single chair stood. A great leather thing cracked and sagging. And in it, a man.

Sebastian.

He sat like a king among ruins. Dressed sharp, clothes cut from another century. A ghost of better times clinging to him.

He smiled when he saw me.

"Hello, Amir," he said. "So nice of you to come—"

I didn’t wait.

I pulled the trigger.

The [Tau Rail Rifle] kicked in my hands. A flash of blue split the gloom. The bolt tore through the air, a screaming thing born of magnet and metal and hate.

The shot crossed the ballroom in the blink of an eye.

The room roared with noise and smoke and light.

The bolt tore a burning hole through the wall and punched clean through the far side of the building. Chunks of brick and wood rained down. Dust choked the air.

But he wasn’t there.

Sebastian reappeared across the ballroom. A cloud of bats twisting in the dark, folding in on itself, reshaping. Flesh knitted out of smoke and wings.

He stood whole again. Smiling. His fangs flashing in the broken light.

"That was not very nice of you, boy," he said. "I was trying to be—"

I pulled the trigger again.

The rifle cracked like a thunderclap. Another bolt ripped the air apart. Another scream of magnetized steel.

He came apart in wings and dark and came together again six paces off. The bats folded back into the shape of a man. He did not rush. He circled the edge of the hall, just outside the maximum effective range of my [Blank] aura. He had learned.

He sighed, as if weary of the game, and slipped a hand into his coat. The hand came out holding iron. A revolver, long-barreled, nickel-bright, the kind of weight a man trusts at close range.

“Anti-magic your way out of this one, connard.”

He took aim.

“Shit.” 

No armor on my chest. No charm between bone and lead. Shit. I hadn’t prepared for this. I didn’t think these supernaturals would ever just use a gun. The thought flashed and was gone. Training filled the gap. Specifically, my [Tempestus Scions Training] told me that it was to my advantage that this whole mess devolved into a gunfight. 

I swung the rail rifle up and fired. Blue light split the dark. At the same heartbeat his revolver bucked and thunder rolled across the tables.

I dropped behind the nearest table. Oak burst under the slug. Splinters stung my cheek. The rail bolt howled past Sebastian, peeled a strip of plaster from the far wall, punched stone, and kept going. Smoke and dust drifted like gauze.

The table shuddered as another round tore through the top. I rolled left, floor slick with broken glass and old blood. The revolver spoke again. A bottle overhead exploded, red rain pattering the boards. I braced the rifle against my shoulder, found a gap in the overturned chairs, and squeezed. Muzzle flash lit the room in ragged strobe. The bolt hammered into the ceiling, showering us both with plaster and wire.

“What’s wrong, Amir?” The vampire called out. “Your best weapon not working right?”

“That word you used earlier,” I said. “Didn’t know you were French!” 

“Well, my version of French is horribly outdated; so, I don’t speak it a lot.” 

“Makes sense.” 

Our gunfight resumed. 

Sebastian moved in bursts—shape unravelling to bats, knitting again two strides away, hammer cocked. The cylinder clicked. Three bullets surged through the air and would’ve hit me if I hadn’t kept moving. The next round was coming. My weapon’s automated reload activated, heat bleeding from the rifle’s rails, and rose into white smoke. In the chaos, however, Sebastian made a mistake. He’d stepped right into the range of my [Blank] aura, right at the very edge of it.