Chapter 29
Dust flexed his fingers, his other gun resting comfortably between his hands. It felt damn good to hold it and not feel like a five-year old picking up his pa’s weapon. And it felt even better to have used it to rip apart a cult of the Triangle.
“I’ve destroyed everything you’ve worked for, haven’t I?” he asked.
The Faustian – the geniuses’ word, not his – smiled, his wild eyes crinkling above his mask. “Almost everything. But not Penelope. And not an important alliance,” he said. His eyes moved toward the chamber’s exit.
Dust indulged him, looked across. At the stairway was Naismith. Swaddled in cultists’ clothing, blood dripping down her hands, she was trying to sneak away when the Faustian called attention to her. Dust hadn’t recognised her in the heat of battle but he now realised she’d been part of a threesome enjoying itself so much that it hadn’t noticed the slaughter of their brethren. When they had ceased, he had assumed Godly Claw had killed them. Clearly not.
There was a strong taste of magic about her. Panic rose in him as he wondered how the cult had turned her so quickly. Then he realised it wasn’t possible to convert someone so rapidly.
“Naismith?”
She jumped, then turned and smiled away her shock, a wicked grin on her young face. Blood-dipped hands clasped together, spraying a fine red mist. Her hair was loose and she looked relieved and relaxed. “Dust. I guess you had to find out. It would not have been fitting otherwise.”
Dust’s heart fell to the floor when her sleeves rolled down and revealed, inches above her elbows, the tattoos of a follower of Omnis. “Oh fuck.”
Naismith followed his gaze then laughed. “Yes, yes, I am Omnis’.”
“How did you hide it?” Shadows Fade shouted. Dust would’ve turned but he couldn’t take his eyes off Naismith.
“Oh. It can talk. Well, pardon my crudity but fuck you, you red-skinned bitch.”
Shadows Fade growled back.
The Faustian then launched himself at Dust, dark magic flaring across his pale skin. He’d only pointed Naismith out to distract Dust and the tactic proved successful when his fist smacked against Dust’s chin. The magic tried to bury into his skin but Resistance didn’t let it, flared counter-magic without Dust having to ask.
It wasn’t enough to stop the Faustian knocking him into the air. Dust crashed down, skidded across the ceremony chamber on his shoulder and only stopped when he smacked against the central altar.
“Well, you three just enjoy yourselves with… him,” Naismith shouted, joy tingeing her voice. “I shall never see you again but I just want you to know; you all sicken me more than you could possibly comprehend. Bye bye!”
With that, she ran upstairs and escaped.
“Sickening bitch, isn’t she?” the Faustian said with another smile. His voice had returned to is regular softness but mania danced on its edges still.
Dust stood, his shoulder hurting. “Yep.”
“And you let yourself get captured for her? That’s got to hurt.”
It did. Badly. He hadn’t trusted his instincts, had let her in, treated her as a partner and a warrior and she had spat on him for doing so. Just imagining her brought a fire into him, a great conflagration he was almost scared of. He couldn’t indulge it or consider what this treachery meant for the Solution; for now, he had to concentrate on rescuing Penelope.
“It hurt more than your little tickle,” Dust replied, lightly rubbing his chin.
The Faustian laughed again, hollow and whistling.
“Shadows Fade?” Dust asked, unwilling to take his eyes off the Faustian again.
“Yes?”
“How’s Penelope?”
She paused. In the silence, the Faustian walked forward, his magic slowly waltzing around his form. “She is almost too far gone. I will prevent her falling completely but it is not something I can maintain.”
He cast his senses back to judge how long he had. Shadows Fade would cope for minutes at most; he felt in Penelope the same magic as was in the Father’s Word. She was being invested with a piece of That Which Sins and the warrior was not powerful enough to hold it at bay.
“It’s an Avatar you’re after?” Dust asked, deciding to move to the offensive.
That slowed the bastard. “How did you know that?”
It was Dust’s turn to launch an unexpected attack, firing a shot between the Faustian’s widened eyes. The dark magic surging across his body deflected the shot but its strength was lessened by the blow, robbing the bastard of one destructive surge at least.
The Faustian took a deep breath and charged, moving at that incredible rate. Whole again, Dust could meet him properly; he spun his other gun around and struck it against the black material of the bastard’s shirt. Both attacks were hay-makers. Their magics, the strengths of their wills, clashed and the flare blocked out the chandelier’s light.
For magic was really the application of will, the strength of your character and your desire to achieve your aims. Everyone has a pool of magic they can call upon with training but it’s how much you want to use it that matters. The principle applied even more for magic which wasn’t yours, magic begged, borrowed or gifted from the gods. So when the Wanted Man and a Faustian of That Which Sins clashed, both convinced they were in the right, whoever wanted it more would win.
In the instant between them coming together and their magic flaring, it proved there was nothing between them and both were knocked back. Dust landed on an unused altar behind him and crushed it, winded instantly. Whereas the Faustian landed on the other side of the room with his neck at an awkward angle, one that would have killed someone who didn’t have his rubbery physique.
Dust pulled himself from the remains of the carved altar, marble dust and debris dropping from his clothes. He took deep breaths as he moved, letting his connection with Resistance rebuild his bruised body. At the same time, the Faustian rolled over and set his neck back between his shoulders like a pale gem. He cricked his head from side to side and stood.
Without talking they clashed again, grey gunmetal against white flesh. They struck each other over and over, their magics flaring like caustic fireworks. The cast-off power struck them both, singeing Dust’s skin and tearing at the magic surrounding the Faustian.
“Do you know why I want you alive?” the Faustian asked between a stomach-jab surrounded by a burning spell and an upper-cut that could have liquefied bone.
Dust dodged both and swiped back with his other gun, an attack the bastard avoided by rolling his head away like it were a loose sack of potatoes hanging from his neck.
“No,” Dust said.
“Do you care?”
“No.”
The Faustian smiled and somehow cast a spell from his mask with the gesture, a new trick on Dust that caught him by surprise. The unusual delivery method meant the spell couldn’t be powerful enough to kill but it turned Dust’s world into a drunken swim of colours, an indiscernible palette of smears.
A blur of black and grey sprang forward and knocked him down, easily avoiding Dust’s counter-attack. As the blur began to focus, the Faustian wrapped his arms around Dust’s shoulders. Literally; his bones became like cloth and his arms coiled around Dust, constricted him. Dust tried to free himself but the Faustian’s grip was firm and his muscles just couldn’t move in the way he’d need them to.
The cloud of white and black inks came into Dust’s struggling vision. “This is just how I want you; constricted, stuck. That Which Sins promised me that I would be escalated, would become as a Saint in Her eyes, if I could do one thing.”
At that, the Faustian started pumping dark magic into Dust, aiming particularly at his tattoo over his heart. It hurt like a bitch, a ripping roar through his flesh, but it was just pain.
Dust relaxed as best he could, started begging his tattoo for the magic to free himself. “Kill me one-on-one?”
“No no,” the smeared Faustian said, stroking him with four-inch fingers. “I want what makes you special.”
“My soul?” he asked, pleading again and again in his mind, hoping his tattoo would respond as much so he didn’t have to listen to this asshole.
“Of course not. I want your tattoo.”
That sent a jolt through both him and Resistance. Power surged back under his control; it seemed that even the hint of such a thing put some urgency behind the god. A strange sense came with it, a feeling of abandonment. Resistance couldn’t or wouldn’t give him more power. He would have only his native abilities to rely on.
Dust wouldn’t use this last piece right away; he wanted to surprise the bastard.
“Your tattoo is the only unique artefact in the world. There are copies of most everything else, every other invention and spell and trinket. But your tattoo is completely unique, an odd seal for an odder pact.” The spell affecting Dust’s vision was almost gone; he could pick out the bastard’s eyes from his blurred face as they searched Dust’s face. “That Which Sins will reward me handsomely for handing it to Her.”
It was Dust’s turn to laugh, a strange and difficult act when he was in so much pain.
“What’s funny?” the pale bastard asked, relaxing his grip on Dust just a little. For someone with such religious fervour, he suddenly wasn’t sure of himself. Maybe he just wanted his sainthood so much he couldn’t believe it might actually happen.
“Three things. You don’t understand my tattoo; you can’t take it by stealing the flesh it’s on. Also, it’s moved to my calf so you’re just hurting me now.”
The Faustian frowned and started repositioning itself to attack his leg. “And?”
Dust let his magic speak for him, turning it into another kinetic burst, cheap but effective magic he relied on too often. But he needed something that fired in all directions to knock away the flesh wrapped round him like a mother’s love or a straight-jacket. And he needed to use it all.
The great burst ripped the Faustian from around Dust and threw it up to the ceiling. Like a long-limbed doll, he crashed against the rock and splatted down again.
Dust scrambled to his feet and kicked the Soulless in the ribs, an attack that lacked grace but had enough power to crush a barrel. The Faustian’s chest caved momentarily but popped back into place as he skidded away.
The world clear now, he collected his other gun then chased after the Faustian. Immediately he had to duck under a pale thrown fist, one grossly-extended to more than twelve feet.
That was the Faustian’s first mistake. Dust grabbed the arm to stop it retracting and fired his other gun into its pale flesh twice. Red sprayed in all directions, covering Dust, and only slivers of muscle remained in his elbow. With a great pull, Dust tore his forearm away and threw it aside. The Faustian howled and his flesh retracted reflexively.
“That is it!” the Faustian roared. He stood up and held his mask with his good hand.
Dust tried to press home his advantage, shot twice at the black-leather bastard, but the bursts bounced off him like pebbles. Dust reloaded and quickly saw why; the Faustian was surrounded by a hell of a lot of magic, so much that even Dust’s other gun was as meagre as… well, a pebble in comparison. This wasn’t like when he’d protected himself from Dust’s sucker-shot. It was something far more visceral and powerful.
“I am sure of nothing but the glory of That Which Sins,” the Faustian screeched, a bleeding form at the centre of a magical maelstrom. “And now I shall convince you of it too.”
He pulled his mask away, revealing a cruel horror where his mouth should be, a configuration of worship Dust had never seen before. Dust supposed there was no end to what one could do to themselves but this self-inflicted cruelty was disgusting, a network of slices and scars, a real sin which extended deep into his face.
From the mess of still-bleeding wounds spewed even more flesh. The Faustian retched and heaved and embraced the mass even as he continued to expel it, rubbing the twitching red meat across his body with one whole arm and what remained of the other. The muscles and skin and hair and oceanic appendages were a form of spell, a solid magic usually reserved for the creation of new life; the Faustian was making himself into an eldritch creature.
To do this alone and with no ceremony he must’ve sacrificed his soul, much as Father Kilkenny had, though this would be purposeful and permanent. Dust’s other gun was useless until the act was complete, more likely to create a blowback deadly to Shadows Fade and Penelope than to stop the spell.
“I have seen this before; he is changing into a dark spirit,” Shadows Fade shouted. “It is a very recent magic.”
He quickly looked back; a blackened Godly Claw had draped herself over Penelope Chalmers and the warrior holding her down to prevent her doing things to her body. The ritual was close to changing Penelope completely.
Dust returned to watching the gathering flesh “What should I expect?”
“A harder fight.”
“Thanks.”
He paced, waited for the Faustian’s transformation to complete. The rest did him good; his muscles had just started to burn from overuse when he’d tore the bastard’s arm off and they got to relax in the slight pause. He stretched and watched the Faustian’s transformation, watched him cover himself in the red mess.
Dust quickly grew bored; the ritual was repetitive now and it would be obvious when it finished. He looked around and saw the Faustian’s dismembered limb; a withered husk, aged flesh which had been assaulted by the vagaries of decades in mere seconds, green fingers with wafer thin skin curled in a death grip. Whatever the Faustian had sold himself for, the deal had included immortality or resistance against time. The standard package then.
There was a soft implosion of magic and a flash of light. The ritual was complete.
The horrible retches stopped and the Faustian rose a new being, something half-man, half-magic. White skin now covered the crimson meat. Tendrils and shifting limbs danced and undulated, vibrating with the heavy thud of his gross, black heart. Pale and lumpy, it looked like piled vomit. Every trace of the Faustian had been subsumed except for silver eyes set into its form and the half-arm which stuck out like a wolf on a dairy farm.
This cruel mess came at him, slithering and running and crawling in equal measure. It was slower than the Faustian but it met Dust’s counters much more capably, lazily knocking his shots away with a swipe of what had once been a hand. When it was within reaching distance, the mass tried to sweep Dust’s feet from under him. Dust jumped over the attack but it spewed a new limb at him whilst he was mid-air and couldn’t dodge. The punch – as good a word as any - struck Dust in the shoulder he’d slid across the room on and the world span until it crashed into him. He skidded along the floor, losing a top layer of skin from his face.
Dust got to his feet, cheeks burning with pain, and tried to meet it again with his other gun. The blow bounced away from its bubbling skin harmlessly. It struck back with two new limbs, punches arcing from opposite directions to sandwich him, crushing his torso like a vice, before it threw him into the air like a toy.
He managed to land on his feet but was immediately kicked on the same spot of his left shoulder again. There was so much power in the attack that his collar bone gave way, snapping with an audible crack. He screamed and was kicked again, knocked to his feet.
Again, this wasn’t going well. He couldn’t believe that such a ritual was common enough that Shadows Fade had recognised it right away; the Badlands had changed much. There would always be people willing to go further than their predecessors, abase themselves further, but he would never have expected something so powerful and reckless. Certainly not that could be instantly summoned, a card one could just play at will.
“Shadows Fade?” he asked as he got to his feet, his voice slurred with wooziness.
“Yes?”
“How did you kill the… one of these?”
“I didn’t. I ran.”
Dust smiled and it hurt like a bitch.
Then the thing was at him again. Dust was more cautious now, chose his moves and didn’t overextend himself so he could study the thing. Dodging, blocking, weaving, he analysed it.
It could grow limbs from anywhere on its body with little effort, scorpion tails and spiked fists and lashing whips. The physical magic that sustained the ritual was what allowed the Faustian to alter its form at will. The transformation wasn’t permanent then; it would last as long as he maintained the magic. And doing so required either a consistent supply, from an artefact or a group of acolytes, or an incredible level of concentration.
<!–nextpage–>
The Faustian tired of sparring and surged at him, curling like a wave. Dust jumped back then rolled aside from the inevitable follow-up, a great clawed foot that would have snapped his neck. He had to use his broken shoulder in the process and stars bloomed before his eyes for just a moment.
Still it came, unrelenting. Dust ducked and hopped, did all he could to avoid getting hit until he knew how to fight the creature. Twice he couldn’t avoid an attack so he struck back with his other gun, lessening the force of the blow slightly but making his whole arm numb. The impact flared the pain in his shoulder the second time and he was nearly blinded by it. Distracted, he took a solid shot to the midriff and felt a rib snap.
Dust staggered back and coughed up blood. His vision blurred. Out of final chances, he had to work something out but couldn’t think with this level of pain.
The pain… That was it, his way of killing it! Dust couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of that. He hopped from one foot to the other as small spikes tried to spear his ankles, then rolled forward on his broken shoulder again to avoid being stabbed in the throat. The world became fuzzy and he nearly bit through his tongue as loose bone dug into his muscles.
The pain and unpleasant taste of blood was worth it; he was near the stump of the Faustian’s arm. Some of the magic-flesh had covered the wound to keep him from bleeding out but it wasn’t enough to protect it. Dust jumped at the Faustian, his other gun raised high, and brought it crashing down on the ragged remains of his arm.
The Faustian roared, his real voice breaking through. Dust didn’t let up, striking the stump again. It tried to loose him but the flesh moved erratically and the sweeping arm missed. Dust reached back, shouted out his pain and fury and hatred for the Faustian and everything it represented, and smashed the weak spot a third time. This time, the spells on his other gun broke through the magic flesh and shredded what was left of that arm.
The Faustian screeched, this time in terror. His concentration was irrevocably broken by the blow and it knew what was coming; the magic sustaining its new form left his control and chose destruction, exploding with the force of dynamite. Dust was knocked back, his shirt and half his chest burned away instantly. He landed on his left side, spearing his collar bone out through his skin and punishing him as only Resistance could match.
Tears, actual tears, formed in his eyes as he lay in a crumpled mess and Dust wasn’t too proud to actually cry at the pain. His ears rang from the explosion and his skin burned. He was a mess.
After some time, his body righted itself as it always would; his muscles twitched and pulled the bones back together and then fused like molten metal. His skin grew back too, though from his other burns he knew it would be gnarled like bark, and each nerve within it squealed and complained, swallowing him. Dust swore and screamed all the while, mindless in a world of suffering.
Recovery hurt more than injury when you weren’t using your own power, an old and inescapable law of magic.
The torment didn’t last forever. Eventually, it was done. Dust sat up. His vision swam and his ears rang. Tears ran down his craggy cheeks. He looked over to where the Faustian had been; all that remained were his bones and dark ash. The risk of death was the price someone paid for that powerful a spell. That and the permanent loss of his soul, the guarantee he couldn’t be brought back by any magician or even god.
“You did it,” Shadows Fade said. She sounded distant and underwater.
He turned to her and nodded. “I was lucky.”
“There is no luck when you serve Resistance.”
Dust merely stood and took a deep breath.
“You should hurry. I cannot hold her back much longer.”
One look at Penelope Chalmers and he understood the warrior’s urgency; it was only Shadows Fade’s will that held back whatever the ritual had introduced into the girl’s system and that was at its breaking point. He had to extract the corruption, the very essence of That Which Sins, now or she would become a Vessel.
“No pressure,” Dust said as he laid his hands on Penelope, half-naked and drained but determined to see this through.