I don't even want to talk about this one. It hurt me to write. Hopefully it will hurt you to read, because that's the point.
The Battle
El saw James go down, but she barely even registered it. Even as the spectral blade flew from the razor in the killer’s hand, she lined up her shot. She aimed for his head, but images were still flashing in her head of who Simpson had once been, of who he might still be if he had never been affected by the evil magic of the razor. The way he spoke of it, it sounded as if it had changed him. She was shaking, second guessing herself, but that was something that she couldn’t afford to do.
Regardless of how he had become this way, Simpson was a crazed killer, and he had to be stopped. Still, she was unsure whether her aim was true enough to hit one of the vulnerable points in Simpson’s head, and made a split decision to change the target to his back. She aimed for his spine, but missed and hit near his kidney. If she had aimed for his head and missed by as much, she would not have hit him at all.
El waited and watched, breathing heavily, feeling the adrenaline pump through her system. She had finally reached her goal, and struck out against the man who she had been chasing for so long. As she watched, he fell to his knees, but after a moment’s pause, to El’s surprise, the man reached behind his back, and he broke the shaft of the arrow free of the embedded tip, and slowly but surely, he stood up again.
“I’m sorry, Ellie, my dear,” Simpson told her, as he turned slowly to face her, “but I’m too close now. Literally speaking. This place was made to focus the vast magics of this land through a ritual designed to act as a sieve and grant one man eternal life and power. It wants to be used for that purpose. The magic of this place, it knows that I am within moments of carrying it out, and it won’t let me die until I have succeeded.”
He turned to face El and started walking toward her, “Now please, make this easy on both of us and put the bow down.”
Instead, El drew another arrow and let it fly, piercing Simpson through the shoulder. He looked over at it and snarled, before slicing the shaft free of the tip with his razor. He turned to look at El again, but she had already moved, circling part way around the room, firing at Simpson again before ducking behind a pillar. Her arrow pierced all the way through his left arm. He left it in and raised the razor in his right hand, letting two spectral blades fly, spiraling past the pillar that acted as El’s refuge, and he waited. As soon as the second blade flew past her, El rolled low under their path.
Simpson thought that he had her, assuming that she would jump for cover behind another of the pillars, and he aimed his next blade accordingly, but he was wrong. Instead, El sprung up and let another arrow fly all in the same motion. It wasn’t her most accurate shot, and she merely struck him in his side, missing any vital organs, but it surprised him enough to stagger him.
El took the moment that it took Simpson to recover to draw one of her heavier grappling arrows, and she let it fly in a high arch before ducking back behind the same pillar again. Simpson regained his composure, and he raised his blade again, but he saw the arrow falling toward his head, and he dodged to the side. El heard his feet slide erratically on the sandstone floor, and she guessed his new position as best she could based on the sound, and swung out from behind her hiding place. She let another arrow fly blindly, and struck Simpson in the thigh. He actually cried out, and ripped the arrow out completely before falling to his knees again, supporting himself with both hands.
El thought that she had him. She stepped out from behind the pillar and moved quickly to stand behind him. She walked up slowly, an arrow aimed right at the base of his skull.
Let’s see, she thought, if this room can keep you alive without a brain stem.
She let the arrow fly, but with a frustrated cry, Simpson rocked forward, and the arrow flew over his head. He pushed himself up, swung his body around, and all in one motion, he swung his razor in an upward motion. El tried to duck to the side, out of the way, but she wasn’t fast enough. She was knocked off of her feet by the force of the blow, and suddenly she realized that right arm, just below the shoulder, felt far too cold. She looked over, and she didn’t believe what she was seeing. There was her arm, but it was too far away, lying several feet from her on the sandstone floor. She tried to move, but she found that she was far too weak, between the trailing end of her adrenaline rush, and the shock and loss of blood.
Surprisingly, though, she wasn’t afraid. In fact, she felt calm, peaceful. She had failed, but he mission was finally over either way, and even though it shouldn’t have, it felt like a relief. Besides, Max was coming. He would finish what she started. Injuries aside, she would be okay, and they’d have each other.
She turned her head to look at the entrance to the chamber, even as Simpson walked over to her and took her by the arm. Straining, he began to drag her, inch by inch, to the back wall of the room, where the hieroglyphs adorned the wall. She watched the entrance even as Simpson reached down and dipped his hand in the blood trailing from where her arm used to be, and pressed said hand against the stone, causing it to collapse into fine particles of sand, which disappeared as if carried by an invisible breeze, revealing another room behind it, which lit up with torches as if by magic.
Even as Simpson resumed dragging her along the floor, into the newly-opened chamber, toward an altar at the center, she continued to watch the entrance, sure that Max would appear there at any moment, and that together the two of them would resume the fight and put an end to Simpson once and for all. She finally lost sight of the entrance as Simpson used the bulk of his remaining strength to heft her up onto the altar, but she found it again just as Simpson raised his blade high above her chest. Darkness crept into the corners of her vision, as the blade thrust downward, and Max appeared in the opening, mere moments too late.
Max stirred. He had no idea how long he had been out, but as he picked himself up from the sandstone floor, he knew what had happened. He remembered the dream that he’d had of Yami and the tomb, where Yami had explained that some tombs and ruins were protected by spells which prevented travel by magic. He would be unable to convert his body to smoke and push ahead with increased speed. He had to rely on his weak, tired, human legs, and he was already injured from crossing the threshold of the corridor to begin with. Still, he had no choice.
At the end of the day, he didn’t care about James. He would be an acceptable loss if it meant stopping the man. He did, however, care about El. He would do anything to get her out alive, so he started running. moving as quickly as he could down the narrow tunnel, with no idea what obstacles might exist along the path ahead. The trip down the corridor took longer than Max expected, and it seemed even longer than it actually was. Despite his best efforts, worst-case scenarios kept going through his mind. He kept telling himself that El could handle herself, and he believed it wholeheartedly, but he had also fought the man himself, pushing himself to the limits of his body and magic, and he had lost. El couldn’t beat him alone, and Max didn’t know how much help James would actually be.
That’s when he heard a gunshot echo through the corridor. The confrontation with the man had started, and Max still couldn’t see the end of the corridor up ahead. He bore down upon the Soul of Life with the full force of his mind, but nothing happened. So he pushed his body even harder, ignoring the weakness in his legs, and the burning in his chest. His spirits lifted when, finally, he could see a light up ahead. He didn’t even remember the last leg of the journey through the corridor. He just remembered emerging into the flickering torchlight of the inner chamber, just in time to gaze through into the adjoining room and see the killer’s razor plunge downward into El’s chest.
The entire world went silent. Max felt like he was floating free of himself, like if he were to look down, he would see his body there, below him. He didn’t know if he was breathing, and he didn’t care. He watched, in shock, as the jewel in the hilt of the knife lit up blood red. The killer pulled it free of El’s flesh, and blood drained from her body, running down a narrow trough built into the side of the altar, and into the chalice held in the killer’s outstretched hand.
The jewels in the lip of the chalice lit up as well. El’s body turned to dust, and the killer raised the chalice past the necklace, which hung around his neck, and a red vapor rose from the cup. He breathed it in, and the jewels in the necklace began to glow as well. The glow of all three intensified, and every wound on the man’s body closed before Max’s eyes. The man laughed, and he tossed the chalice aside. He looked at the knife, and he dropped it onto the ground at his feet. He wouldn’t need it anymore.
He looked at Max, and he began to speak. Max was surprised to find that he could hear again. His ears were ringing, and his cheeks felt unexpectedly warm and wet as he looked around the room for the first time, seeing James lying nearby in a pool of blood.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” the killer said, sounding almost genuine, except that his voice held no real sympathy, “but I didn’t have a choice. The ritual required that I sacrifice someone who I had some prior connection to, and Ellie was the last person I still knew from my old life.”
“You knew her from the dig,” Max said, mostly to himself, putting one more piece of the puzzle into place in his mind.
“That’s right,” the man said. “She was a nice girl. As much as I hated having to use her, I feel quite lucky. If it had been someone else chasing me all of these years, I would have been out of luck.”
He laughed, as if he’d made a moderately funny joke. Then he looked down at his hands and he flexed them experimentally.
His legs still shaking, Max managed to push himself up, standing upon unsure footing. He looked across the two open round chambers at the man, and he reached out mentally for the Soul of Life, and he felt its power flowing again. Now that he was out of the corridor, his powers were once again at his disposal. Smoke poured from beneath his cloak, lifting him up, and tendrils of smoke swept up all of his remaining knives, holding them up in the air all around him. He launched all of his knives at once at the man, hitting his mark with every one. The man looked like a human pin cushion. He didn’t collapse. He didn’t cry out, or even bleed. He simply flexed his arms and the knives fell from his flesh, cluttering to the ground, the wounds that they had made closing as they emerged.
Max snarled, and he reached out with tendrils of smoke, and he snatched up his knives again. He swung them in wide arcs, slicing into the man again and again. This time, he did bleed, but far too little, and as each cut was made, it closed again in an instant. He simply stood there and laughed, gently at first, and then madly and hysterically.
“This is amazing,” the man said. “Part of me didn’t expect it to work, but it was all true. The Powers of Darkness drawn to me by a sacrifice, and carried into my flesh itself by the ritual. As long as Shadow Magic exists, my body can never be destroyed, and my soul cannot be pulled from it.”
He looked over at Max, “You’re no longer a threat to me.”
He walked toward Max, who pulled his knives in close to his hovering body, prepared for an attack, but to Max’s surprise, the man walked right past him, as if he didn’t matter. Max didn’t know what to do. He had assaulted the man’s body with everything he had, and it had done nothing, and as the man had no fears, he could do nothing to the man on the mental plane. If the man spoke the truth, not even a Shadow Game intended to rend the man’s very soul would have any effect. Still, he would not allow the man to leave. He would fight until one of them couldn’t fight anymore. He slid upon his smoke around between the killer and the entrance, and sent smoke pouring forward from beneath his cloak, blasting the man back.
Max cast magic over his face, darkening it completely, and deepening his voice, and he said, “Even if I have to fight you forever, I’ll never let you leave this place. You’ll pay for your crimes, somehow.”
Max surged forward, engaging the man in hand-to-hand combat. He tried not to allow this action to remind him that he and El had never had the opportunity to train together, but it was too late. Even as he threw punches in rapid succession, he screamed in response to the sudden pain in his chest, and he felt his eyes sting with tears. The killer practically ignored him, barely even bothering to defend.
Max thrust both palms forward, striking the man in the celiac plexus, knocking him back. Smoke poured from beneath Max’s sleeves, pushing him back further, and knocking free what air remained in his lungs. As the killer recovered, Max summoned up all of his knives and thrust them forward, striking the man directly in the chest. He actually seemed to feel the attack, having to physically remove several of the knives, but as soon as he did, the rest fell free of his body, and he healed again.
One last time, Max called his blades back to him. He cried out again, out of rage, and pain, and desperation, and three of those blades began to glow in time with his amber Soul of Life. They stretched and changed, merging together into a duel disk in the shape of a sickle, with a edge looked sharp, and would feel sharp if ever it struck one of Max's enemies. This new Sickle Disk flew right into his hand, and on instinct, Max threw it. It spun through the air and embedded in the killer's chest, knocking him back and off of his feet. However it was only a few seconds before he stood up again, the Sickle Disk already pulled from his flesh, the wound already closed behind it.
“It’s no use,” the killer told Max, smiling at him from behind his long, stringy hair, tossing the Sickle Disk away unceremoniously, “I have nothing to fear from you anymore.”
This took Max aback. Anymore? he thought. This man had never feared him. He had replied truthfully to Max’s question that he didn’t have any fears.
Then, suddenly, Max had an epiphany. No, he realized, he never said that he had no fears, he told me that he fears nothing.
Max felt relief wash over him like a physical thing. Suddenly, in that moment, he understood. He knew why this man had been so desperate for a permanent body that the promise of one had turned him psychotic. He knew how it was possible for the man to answer Max’s question the way that he had. But most importantly, he knew how he could win. He looked past the man, at the altar which was El’s final resting place, and he cried outright, out of pain, but also out of relief, because he knew now that he would be able to complete her mission for her, and avenge her death.
Max looked to the man, and met his eyes, blinking his tears away, and he could see it. The man wasn’t guarding his mind anymore. Max could see the man’s name, his history, and the truth of his greatest fear. It gave Max the way in that he needed.
“Charles Simpson,” Max declared, “you have trespassed on the souls of more people than I can count, including woman I loved. For that, you shall face a penalty game.”
“You can’t hurt me,” Simpson replied defiantly with a small chuckle. “Not even your magic can kill me anymore.”
“That’s true,” Max told him, “but I know, now, what it is that you fear. You fear nothingness, the end of your existence. Your body and your soul might be beyond my reach at this point, but your mind is not.”
Smoke billowed from beneath Max’s cloak, and poured into Simpson’s nose and mouth, and into his eyes. Simpson stepped back, gargling the darkness, trying to force it back out, clawing at his eyes and neck. Max followed the smoke with his mind, connecting his psyche with Simpson’s, filling Simpson’s entire being with Max’s grief and rage. He and Simpson existed together in that mental place. There was nothing but the two of them, living decades within Simpson’s subconscious, even if only a few minutes passed on the outside. Max tormented Simpson again and again, killing him a thousand times over, keeping him isolated from the world, until finally Simpson forgot everything but pain. With a satisfying, audible pop, Max felt Simpson’s mind snap, and he withdrew back into himself.
Max looked around. He’d forgotten where he was, and what had happened, but a single look around brought it all back. He dropped down into a sitting position, and he watched as Simpson collapsed at his feet, unmoving. He was still alive, Max knew that much, but it didn’t matter. There was hardly anything left alive within the man’s mind any longer. He would live for all eternity here in this place, unable to move, or think, or hurt anyone ever again, and a small part of him would always know. A small part of him would always be aware of the world around him, and the permanent separation between him and it. Max couldn’t imagine a worse Hell. He smiled, and he laughed happily. Then, carefully, Max stood up again, and he walked over to James. He reached down and touched the detective’s neck. Max was surprised, and relieved (which itself was surprising) to discover that the detective was still alive, his pulse faint, but there.
Max knelt down beside the detective, and he concentrated, summoning up the healing powers of the Soul of Life. After what he had done to Simpson, using those powers felt alien to him, and he didn’t do as good a job as he could have, but in only another few minutes, James was stable, but still unconscious, and still in need of medical help. Without a single thought, as if his body were running entirely on autopilot, Max strained and fireman lifted James just enough to drag him slowly but surely into the corridor, and back into the outside world.
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