Chapter 14A: Extraneous Solutions

Chapter Fourteen

Without waiting or wasting a weary moment, the underworld queen activated her power and unleashed a high-speed storm of energy blades. Desperate to defend my disease-stricken lover, I activated the first power I had ever stolen. I summoned a substitute to serve as a shield, and I tilted it to bloodily block the blades which barreled through her kitchen. Though her attack dismembered my defensive dummy, the multifarious impact spun me around to face the two henchmen who blocked our escape. I then unleashed my second stolen power in the form of a fiery sphere which shot across the spacious kitchen. One henchman stood his ground and extended his glowing hands as if they could somehow interrupt my attack.

But in the moment that this henchman touched my high-speed fireball, he immediately reflected it in the opposite direction. The blazing sphere barreled back toward us so swiftly that I could only protect Aeliana by wrapping my arms around her and throwing myself in the way. The scorching sphere struck with so much force that we were both blown backward and through a wooden door which buckled on impact. I had mostly shielded Aeliana from the impact and the shockwave, but contusions and burns scattered my skin.

The other henchman then raced in through the broken door and lifted his left hand. Unaware of the power he possessed, I wrapped my arms around Aeliana and summoned a second substitute to shield us both. Through the corner of my eye, I saw only a generic blast of concentrated energy. It struck my shield with a restrained burst, but a surprising impact sent us flying at a high speed. The shockwave slammed us down the stairs which led to Bellaina’s basement, though we cushioned our fall with the smoldering dummy I deployed for defense. It was left in pieces by the time we reached the basement where we once watched the dark queen dismember helpless captives and burn them with black fire. Too exhausted and injured to fight back, Aeliana retreated into the shadowed space. I wiped the blood from my arms and drew my sword. I resolved to defend her even until my last breath. I promised myself I would save her even if it would spell my death.4

A voice whispered from the darkness as if to warn us of our fate, “I’m afraid if you are down here then it is already too late.”

I retreated from the base of the stairs while heavy footsteps shook the ceiling. Except for the opening from which we had both fallen, the only light in this dungeon emanated from a dim lamp which swung from a chain. I saw through the dim light that a woman stood inside a cage on the other side of the shadowed room. Unlike the captives I had seen before, she looked like an ordinary civilian one would see walking through the streets. She was an elderly woman with long hair and a nice jacket. She could not have been farther apart from the victims whom Bellaina had killed right before my eyes. Aeliana eyed the caged woman suspiciously, but I quietly motioned her to stand near the cage if for no other reason than that Bellaina would be less likely to slaughter her captive without reward.

I said to the old woman locked behind the bars, “You are the only of her victims to not have any scars. Do you have a life outside of this hopeless space? Perhaps we could fight our way free from this place.”

But the woman answered from the edge of the light, “I’m afraid I don’t have the ability to fight. They promised to help me but deceived me instead. They’ll keep me here until I fulfill their purpose, and then they’ll bury me in the dirt like anyone else. And when that happens, all the secrets of black fire will follow me into the grave.”

I couldn’t help but detect from her words that she could in some way serve as a steppingstone for Aeliana’s salvation, but at that moment, I could not concern myself with anything other than the battle at hand. A large shadow fell upon the dusty stairwell from above, indicating that Bellaina and her henchmen had resolved to finish us in the same place where she had killed her countless other victims.

Bellaina announced from the doorway up above, “I knew on the day we met that you would die for love. Even when you asked me to help you escape the wall, I could somehow see the inevitable conclusion. I somehow knew you would return only to die by my hand. It’s fortunate that I waited so long. The time I waited will be paid back in full with quintessence.”

The underworld queen lifted her left hand as if she prepared to strike in that moment, but I outraced her by first unleashing a blazing sphere of spiraling fire. I launched my weapon diagonally up the staircase, but then Bellaina’s henchman threw himself in the way. I realized with shock that he would reverse my attack as he had done before, so I instantly employed another stolen power to raise a rock wall from the basement floor. My own reflected fireball struck the rock wall in the next moment with a shower of sparks; it shattered my barrier and launched gravel like shrapnel at a high speed.

As bits of rock flew beside me and tore shreds from my skin, I kicked the wall and launched myself away from the base of the staircase. I narrowly managed to escape a scattershot of energy blades launched by Bellaina in that same moment. Aeliana watched with wide eyes as her hands feebly clung onto the bars beside the caged woman. She appeared to struggle just to catch her breath.

Bellaina yelled down from the top of the stairs, “God Himself has repealed your prayers. Don’t pretend like your extravagant declarations were anything other than a desperate prayer. Even someone as self-aggrandizing as you had to know on some level that you were too weak to exert your will upon this world. Perhaps you believed that you could rewrite reality by reciting the same rhetoric, but I’ve found in my life that words are powerless compared to a weapon. I know you know that I’m right. I know you know that you are only a steppingstone unable or unwilling to understand reality. The only question is if you will die first, or if you will have to watch her burn in black fire.”

Every word she spoke infuriated the darkness that devoured me long ago. I could even feel Aziel and Elijah writhing inside me with a wish to strike her down. But at the same time, I could feel those same disembodied pieces warn me that she had said this merely to excite my temper. If I could steel my nerves and keep my cool, then I could perhaps concoct a campaign to crush her. For the moment, we were both at a stalemate. If I approached the base of the staircase, she and her cronies could attack from above. But if she were to descend the stairs on her own, I could strike her from a safe distance.

I shouted to the dark queen from the shadows below, “I suspect we’re more similar than you know. We are both cursed to aggrandize ourselves; we both believe ourselves above anyone else. But I inflate my future while you inflate your past. You delude yourself into thinking you made something that can last. But everything you’ve built is just a castle made of mud, and in the end you’ll have nothing to show for all your sweat and blood. You failed to make so much as a mark upon this land, and the worthlessness that plagues you is a truth you cannot stand.”

“Perhaps you’re right, and the underworld I’ve built could end at a glance. But even if that is to happen, I have lived my life in prosperity by sacrificing those who unlike me lived their lives in squalor. I know for a fact that many of my victims came from the same orphanage where I wasted my earliest years. Some were there even at the same time. But unlike them, I built myself into the queen of the dark and left a mark upon this world. For better or worse, I changed the course of history in this city, and that is the difference between us. You have delusions of grandeur about a fantasy future forged by your hand, but after I kill you, no one will remember your name,” Bellaina said as if I could not say the same.

I could tell by her verbal reversal that she would not fall for her own trick. Neither of us would let the other bait us or enrage us into making the first move. However, the shadows and the lamp which created them danced as if driven by a disturbance up above. This served as evidence that Bellaina and her henchmen had a strategy in the works. While Aeliana and I gained nothing as we waited for our enemy to make the next move, Bellaina had found a way to improve her own standing. She benefited from our motionless stalemate, and so it was a mathematical certainty that this moment was the best time to attack. Our circumstances would otherwise worsen with every passing second. I was therefore compelled to go on the attack.

(Note: there are 2 more parts to this chapter!)