“So, who was this guy?” Jack asked her.

“No se. I stopped learning their names many years ago, Jack,” she smiled at him.

“Seems a little heartless,” he spit out, straining to keep upright under the weight of the White Beast’s oppressive power.

“I no longer have a heart, botano,” she took a step toward him, and the crushing pressure increased.

“A snack, huh? Bet yer murderous ass I’m a full course, bitch. Baptised in Darkness,” Jack suddenly stood straight up.

A forest of coiling black arms studded with razored fangs burst from his body as the shadows were sucked from around him to create his armor. He rushed forward.

“SHADOW HYDRA!”

A cluster of the dozens of thick, tenebrous coils shot out, crossing the distance between the nightbringer and the End of Heroes so fast Layla couldn’t perceive the black limbs move.

The obsidian edges of the tentacles tips arrowed toward the Mother of Horrors, entwining into a single spear of darkness.

The massive drill of twisting darkness slammed into the Beast’s face, unerringly striking the head with supernatural swiftness.

To Roshana, it still moved in slow motion.

The Shadow Hydra slammed into her adamant-hard skin with the roaring impact of a car wreck, bouncing off to the side. 

Jack lunged after the attack, using the Shadowcrafted limbs to propel him forward with inhuman speed, Another Shadow Hydra funneled out of the mass of limbs, aimed directly at Roshana’s right eye. 

Her foot left the ground, traveling fast enough to break the sound barrier. First the toes, then the ankle, then the calf lost all consistency and elongated into a whip of flesh, the air crashing like thunder in the tentacle’s wake.

The limb hit Jack in mid-leap, stopping abruptly as it hit his armor, the cord of flesh delivering its payload of kinetic energy to the nightbringer’s body.

Jack was instantly slammed away from the attack like a baseball struck by a telephone pole swung at the speed of sound.

The roar of the impact was deafening.

The blast of displaced air hit Layla like a haymaker, sending the succubus ass-over-head into a planter full of flowers.

Jack had been flung through two buildings, into an empty residence. He’d seen the White Beast’s foot move, but only got a handful of shadow limbs in front of it before the whip of flesh hit him like a howitzer shell.

Then he’d tried to slow his flight, cushioning his impacts and trying to latch on to anything that would reduce the impact. That part had been significantly more successful.

He still felt like he’d been run over by a train, and a quick glance at his panel told him he had a couple dozen broken bones. He opened his eyes and coughed up a handful of black blood.

Roshana was standing over him.

“Mira, botano. You are inconsequential. You will serve your purpose. You will be my whetstone, and then you will cease to exist. This is not your home, mi querido. This is a world of gods and monsters. And here, I am both,” she smiled down at him.

“I am the Lord, and there is none else. There is no God besides Me. Isaiah. You’re not a god, Roshana, and your face is bleeding,” he grunted and dragged himself upright, planting shadow limbs into the ceiling and walls.

She stopped suddenly, eyes wide. Her hand went to her cheek, where it came back with shimmering white blood, iridescent with gold and blue hues.

“The devil can cite scripture for his purpose, pendejo,” her hand wiped her cheek again and the tiny nick was gone. “I will enjoy killing you most of all, Jack. Far more than I have enjoyed anything in ages. Get moving, hijo de puta.”

He laughed, coughing up another gout of ichor.

“You kiss your momma with that mouth?” his twinned voice echoed.

Jack threw himself forward, rocketing at the Mother of Horrors faster than most humans could see, another Shadow Hydra spiraling out toward her face again.

She vanished.

The unanswered momentum slung him out into the street, where he tumbled to a stop, laying on his back for a moment before releasing a pent-up groan of pain. He stole a quick glance at his panel and relaxed his connection to the primal Dark, allowing his shadow limbs and his obsidian scale armor to evaporate.

“Jackson!” Layla’s shout pulled his gaze to his left, where she stood at the intersection, searching for him.

“Holy fuck, Tex! Are you okay?” she dropped to the ground next to him.

Jack’s undead flesh was crumpled in a perfect half-cylinder across the entire front of his body, four inches deep, from right shoulder to left hip. Every bone under the crease was shattered.

He coughed up another blot of black liquid. 

“I got that bitch,” he whispered. “I cut her. Right on her smug fucking face.” 

He grinned up at the succubus. 

“So, you’re okay?” she gingerly lifted his right arm.
“Oww. That’s broken,” he winced.
“How… how many broken bones do you have?” she asked.
“Umm…” he eyeballed his panel. “Twenty-nine.”
“I guess it’s good to not need organs, eh?” she smiled, the pinched worry easing out of her expression some.

“There they are!” Rory’s voice echoed from down the street.

“Cavalry’s here,” she whispered to the nightbringer.
“They’re fuckin’ late,” he coughed again.

Rory skidded to a halt next to the two, then his eyes took in the catastrophic damage to Jack’s body.

“Holy. Shit. She hit you?” he stared in horror.
“Yeah, nicked that bitch in the face, though. It was awesome,” Jack laughed again, letting out a rattling wheeze.

Maggie and Erin arrived just after Rory. Erin gasped as she saw the nightbringer’s shattered chest.

“You’re okay?” tears began to roll down her cheeks.
“Yeah, I’ll be good as new in a bit,” he coughed.
“We’ll nae wait a bit, lad. Blessing of the Twilight Garden. Restoring Light,” Maggie’s eyes lit with starry fire.

A brilliant cascade of night sky and stars flowed from her outstretched hand into the nightbringer’s broken body. The indention across his torso suddenly flexed outward, instantly restored, with a cacophony of staccato cracks as the bones mended together in a moment.

The twilight fire faded.

“Holy hell, Maggie?!” Layla gaped at her.
“Ah did tell yeh ah was a fair mighty healer,” she smiled.

Jack pushed himself up, flexing his arms and hands, bending and twisting. 

“Fuck’s sake, Maggie. I’m…” he flipped open his panel. “I’m fully healed.”
“Well, yer a wee bebbe, so aye. Nae much verve ta work with,” she grinned at him.
“If you can do this… we could do it. We can clear the Dry Vault. Oh, I'ma punch that bitch right in the grill next time I see her,” Jack’s manic smile began to widen.
“Yeah, I don’t get that. How did you do that?” Layla poked him.

Jack: Baptised in Darkness doubles my Nightwraith skills while it’s on.

Jack’s fierce grin grew even further.

Layla: Are you fucking shitting me?!
Jack: Nope.
Maggie: But, tha means...
Jack: Yep.
Rory: That means if we can get even close to her, you can fight her for as long as you can stay connected to Big O.
Erin: I thought you said he couldn’t help us against her.
Jack: I mean, technically, he’s not helping us against her. He’s just… helping me.
Maggie: Dinnae be too hasty, me wee ones. It’s like the White Bitch has somethin’ similar. Some great power that bends the rules.
Jack: Yeah, I figure so.

A few yards away, seated in a chair in front of a quaint little bistro, the Devil herself sat and watched the false serpent’s Chosen celebrate having survived a casual punt.

She absently rubbed her cheek.

Will you be first, Jackson? Or will I save you for last, perhaps to push me onward to the last steps of my journey? To finally be free of this wretched world and these horrors upon my hands.

She looked down at her pale, slender hands, then shook her head.

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

 

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