Infernal Investigations

Gregory slipped on the ice, and that saved his life.

Alice intercepted him halfway down, catching him with ease before he hit the ground. Over both of them, something flew, slower than a bullet as it buried itself in the wall ahead of them with a thunk. The shaft of the bolt shook, and Gregory heard a curse behind them.

He turned while Alice drew the revolver from her belt, eyes already looking at the alleyway mouth where a sneering Infernal in a patchwork grey coat loaded another bolt, cranking the crossbow.

Mouth dry, Gregory swallowed. No, he wouldn’t mess up yet again.

He’d never practiced using his talents offensively until the night Malvia had yelled at him to kill thirty-four people on his family’s estate.

He’d forced himself to count afterwards, compelled to know exactly how many had died at his hand. When he’d done it, it had been pure instinct, undirected, aimless, just trying to drive the Infernals back.

Which is how he’d ended up charring Malvia to near-death. Since then he’d practiced, on focus, on making the pathway of the energy tighter, narrower. It took effort, more than any other kind of divine magic he called upon. When Tarverites fought, it was with a song or a weapon augmented by power. The use of raw divine power directly was an emergency measure, not something meant to be used.

He’d not had the time to learn, to train, so he’d chosen it despite the cost to his energy, anyway. And had done so until practice became second nature.

Two pointed fingers and a beam of white light shot out, as thin as the bolt, and impaled the Infernal through the eye, pulling upwards, slicing through flesh into its straight horn. Not even enough time for a scream, falling to the ground, eye socket now a scorched ruin, bisected horn hitting the ground in chunks.

He breathed out as the body collapsed. It took many times more energy than just unleashing undirected energy all across the street, but it had worked. It had worked.

Alice punched his shoulder, and the explosion of pain shook him out of it as he yelped.

“What the-”

“Get lost in your head on your own time,” she snapped, grabbing his coat and shoving him further down the street. “Unless you can repel bolts, we’re moving the fuck-”

Another projectile flew from further up the street. Gregory ducked, but the projectile was far off target. Alice fired, revolver roaring as Gregory barely saw a hooded figure leap into an alleyway, only a flash of a brown coat. An instant later, the bullet buried itself in the wall where they’d been as the bolt landed harmlessly in the snow.

“Alleyway, now!” Alice yelled, already running. A second later and Gregory was right behind her, following behind.

Gregory’s eyes darted about as they entered the narrow passageway. Barely wide enough to accommodate the both of them, multiple entrances and exits along the sides. Rotten wood and already several places where it had given way to the insides of other buildings. The sun only touched the upper walls on one side, the rest of it dim and abounding in shadows.

His eyes went from one side to the other constantly. So many places an assailant could come from. None of this seemed to matter to Alice, who was rushing ahead, revolver at the ready.

“Was that a crossbow?” Gregory asked incredulously.

“Yeah,” Alice said casually, somehow outpacing him even though he had nearly two feet on her. “They want this quiet, and while I’d love to be loud, I only got so many bullets-perfect!”

She came to a halt, Gregory swerving to the side not to crash into her back as she quickly aimed.

A bullet blasted through the head of an Infernal peeking around the corner, blood spewing against the wall behind him. Gregory cursed, ears still ringing from the thunderous blast of the revolver. They hurt as he hit the wall as he skidded to a halt, and something moved out of the corner of his eye.

He pointed. Divine light flashed at the third Infernal, leveling a crossbow from the edge of the roof. She shrieked, her face black and roasted, falling into the snow, her weapon following a bit later.

“Don’t stop moving,” Alice said, putting a bullet into the twitching body, tail grabbing Gregory’s wrist, yanking him off the wall. “We need to-”

Movement flickered in the corner of Gregory’s eyes, something flying. Pain, pain as something stabbed deep into his arm, feeling like hot steel speared into his bone.

He screamed, one arm trying to cover the wound only to find something already there. Fingers curled around the wooden shaft of the bolt, warm blood already pouring around the wood.

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Alice’s revolver roared again, a figure at one end going limp as blood poured out of their chest. They weakly tried to keep a grip on their crossbow, only for a second before a second bullet hit them in the head, blood spraying out across the wall.

Gregory gritted his teeth as he tried pulling at the shaft. Pain snaked further inside, barbs or something resisting the urge to pull it out. Fine, he’d just use magic to close the wound around the shaft, then take care of it later.

Divine magic touched the wound, and in response, the snakes of pain exploded, fiery coils that traveled up and down his arm. Gregory screamed as something twisted inside his arm, hooking onto the flesh around the bone and wrenching it, blood spurting out of the wound.

“The fuck just happened?” Alice said, not looking at him, eyes still on the alley entrance, fingers hurriedly but precisely loading a fresh bullet into her revolver.

This…had he somehow betrayed his oaths? Made Tarver not only withdraw his granted grace but also turned it on him for being usel-no! No doubting now. Another explanation made sense.

“They coated the bolt with something,” Gregory forced out, voice ragged. “It’s reacted to my divine magic, to-”

He stopped, jaw clenched tight as the cut torn across his biceps opened further, skin splitting open. Not from his moving. It wasn’t just reacting to his magic; the poison was forcing his wound open further.

“That does it, this just went from attempted mugging to something targeted,” Alice hissed. “I don’t care how much you hurt we are running-”

Something moved at the mouth of the alley again, a flash as it aimed a crossbow, bolt gleaming in the sun.

No time to warn. No time to scream. Just an instant to try to force it to be precise. Gregory’s finger pointed, and close to every last bit of magic he had flew.

Alice hissed as the skin on her cheek browned and crisped, beginning to blacken, but he hadn’t hit her as she dropped to a knee. The lance of light rushed past her, skewered the head of the Infernal, brains cooked from the inside out before he even loaded another bolt.

The bolt flew right where Alice had stood, passing inches above her kneeling figure before burying itself in the melting snow.

Alice turned, one hand pressed to the flesh of her cheek, skin peeling off already, paler and bleeding underneath.

“I’m sorry,” Gregory hurriedly said, moving to try to examine the burn. “I’m so sorry!”

“Move!” Alice snapped, tail ramming into the side of his head, and her gun thundered a second later.

An Infernal toppled into the alleyway, joining the one already down here, twitching as his hands weakly tried to cover the gushing hole in his throat.

A second bullet through the eye from the irate Alice made the twitching stop.

“Think they got more than six?” Alice idly asked, ignorant of the parts of her cheeks crinkling and rippling as it stretched her fried skin.

Gregory tried listening, but the ringing in his ears made it useless. He could hardly hear Alice. Even his own breathing, fast and shallow, not a sound of it reached his ears. Hard to focus as he tried to keep his damn crossbow wound from tearing itself open any more.

“I can’t hear anything,” he admitted, then repeated it louder when Alice pointed at her own ear.

“Yeah, I’m not shocked there,” Alice said louder. “I meant, do you think they would have put together a larger group than this?”

Gregory bit back a laugh, even the slightest jostling making his arm scream. “I have no idea. Wrong person to ask.”

“I’m betting on no,” Alice said, still cautiously keeping her eyes on the rooftops as she leaned down, flipping the corpse over. “I ducked in here figuring it would be better than whatever prepared killing field they set up on the street. If I’d known it was six, I’d have kept in the wider space. Has to have only been six. If they had had more we’d be flooded by now. Anyone left is either running or not eager to stick their head in here. This was the one who ran away on the street. Probably signalling. Lookee here.”

Alice pulled a cloak out of the dead Infernal’s bag, a garish thing that Gregory swore made his wound hurt even more. People claimed Bards had strange-fashioned styles while others wore things like that?

“An eye-watering pink and black cloak,” Alice said, pulling out one from the dead Infernal’s bag that really matched the description. There were so many alternating squares of either color they blended together into a chaotic kaleidoscope of colors.

“One of Holmsteader’s people,” Gregory said, remembering the cloak from his brief foray into her area. “That clothing is unmistakable.”

“I’d say you exaggerate, but I’ve had the misfortune of seeing these gaudy idiots prancing about. How’s your arm?”

“Fine?” Gregory ventured, only to wince as the jaw of pain around his biceps sank its teeth further in blood leaking around the shaft and his clenched fingers. “Not fine.”

“Shite,” Alice said. “Are we closer to your temple or Malvia’s shop now?”

“Closer to a place that will get us to the Temple,” Gregory said. “A bar. Owner owes me a favor and owns a cart.”

Which would travel faster than either of them could manage in the melting snow.

“Alright, we’ll head there,” Alice said, getting up from the body.

“Why?” Gregory asked, staring at the corpses. “Malvia thinks Holmsteader might have a deeper involvement in this, but why try to kill you or me?”

“Better question, why be so careless about her clothing,” Alice said. “Anyone with the good sense to hide this in the first place wouldn’t keep it on her.”

“Oh,” a layered discordant voice, familiar but wrong at the same time, said behind them. “It’s because I threatened the poor/pitiful/tiny thing with a flaying. I wanted to do the useless flesh-shell/insect/work of my other half a favor since I’m ripping her new toys/favorites/lovers away.”

Gregory spun around, only to have something heavy ram into his side, throwing him against the alleyway. Something cracked, and he fell to the ground, every breath pain. Blinking tears out of his eyes, he forced himself up onto his elbows.

Alice’s revolver fired once, then no more as their assailant’s tail wrapped around her neck, choking her as it lifted her off the ground.

Three heads stared at them, human, orc, and in the center Infernal, a familiar countenance smiling down from eight feet above. It yanked a saber free of the alleyway wall with a shriek, sharpened bone ripping through wood.

The three face’s expressions shifted, turning ecstatic as more arms pushed free of the torso, sabers made of bone clutched in thin skeletal hands.

“Welcome, Friends/Lovers/Meat!” the Queen of Masks exclaimed. “It’s such a delight/pleasure/hatred to meet you!”