Ahh, it's a good feeling when you finish multiple writing projects.
And I've saved the best for last, so to speak.  I just hope this is a
good finish to a great run.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------


Sky of Blood



The next day came with a gray overcast.  It seemed to have a foreboding
about it, like this was everyone's last day on the planet.  Eric
checked out early and headed for the train station, with Michael in
close pursuit.

Eric arrived just in time, checked his ticket, and got on the train.
Michael was a little late.  The moment he walked into the station, the
train was leaving.  All the doors were closed and the train was already
moving at over two-hundred miles-per-hour.  He quickly ran to the edge
of the platform, waited for just the right moment, then snapped his arm
out and grabbed hold of the railing on the end of the caboose.  The
speed of the train nearly pulled his arm right off his torso, but he
managed to stay in one piece and land on the platform, then enter the
train.

Inside wasn't what he expected.  The decor was strange, to say the
least.  And the passengers were somewhat...dead.  There were dark
circles under their eyes and their faces were completely pale.  Of all
the trains Steph had to put him on, why did this one have to have
vampires?  Oh well, they were no trouble.

"So, this is the guy?" one asked.

"Yeah, he's supposed to be a demi-power," another replied.

"Him?  He looks like a fucking teenager."

"Who cares, let's get him."

They all stood up and rushed him as one force.  Michael calmly raised
his arm, pointed his palm at the group, then a wall of fire formed and
shot through the car, disintegrating the vampires, then going right
through the door and through the rest of the train.  Michael just
watched it burn up everything in sight.  "Well.  I never liked sharing
my seat, anyway."


Somewhere farther up the train, normal passengers went about their
business...for the moment.  Suddenly, a wall of fire passed through the
train, burning everyone to ashes.  Eric was sitting with his back to
the firewall and didn't see it, but he heard the screams and realized
something was wrong.  Normally the screams didn't occur till after the
train crashed.  He turned around and saw the firewall, quickly stood up
and fired a bolt of energy at it.  A hole appeared where the energy
hit, then the firewall was dispersed.  Now he could see where it came
from.


In the back of the train, Michael felt Eric coming closer.  He didn't
have time for a fight, not now.  He remembered how the Agent had
disappeared in the Epsilon Center and tried a similar trick.  He bended
the light around him, blocking him from view.  To prevent any mind
tricks, he mustered his strength and put up a massive mental wall
around his mind.  Now he stood in the middle of the car, totally
undetectable, by any means necessary.


Eric walked into the caboose and looked around.  The same kind of
damage was in this car; everything burned.  He walked up to the middle
of the car to get a better look at what was behind the train, maybe
figure out what caused the firewall.  He moved almost close enough to
touch Michael, within three inches, if that.  Something wasn't right,
that much he knew.  Something created the firewall, and for some
reason, that something wasn't here.

Michael glared at Eric, standing only inches from his face.  He had
been following him for ten weeks, and this was the closest he had ever
gotten to him, and he couldn't even kill him.  So fucking annoying.

After a few painfully long moments, Eric turned around and walked out
of the car.  He stopped in the next one and sat down in a seat, putting
him out of view.

"See you later, Michael."

What the hell?!  He immediately dropped the illusion and ran into the
next car, but there was no one in the seat.  The window was closed,
locked from the inside, and there was no sign of any other escape
route.  Even if he had done the same illusion as he had done at
Epsilon, there was no hiding his mental signature from him, and it was
gone now...  So where the hell did he go?

***

In an abandoned house somewhere in Ysalin, a group of shadowy figures
crept through the maze of furniture, then finally reached their
destination.  "It's here!" one of them shouted.  A glass case, covered
with dust, just like everything else, but with something special
inside.  "Get Spectre!  It's here!"

A dark cloud appeared beside the speaker, then the cloud achieved form.
Spectre brushed the dust off the case, then peered inside at the book.
It was bound in a type of leather and covered with glyphs and mystical
symbols.  She could feel the power radiating from inside the case,
power that was, as yet, not hers.  She was about to break the case with
her fist, but she noticed a small latch on the side, and opened it.

"Kicel!" she called, "Bring the mage over here."

The vampire complied, and led the quivering mage over to the book.  He
didn't like being in this place in the least, and he hated being around
Spectre.  She handed him the book, and he carefully opened it up and
gingerly looked through it.  It was so old, it was practically dust,
but it was kept intact by its own power.  He turned to a page close to
the end and read the contents.  "This is it," he announced.  "This page
has the incantations needed for the ritual."

"Just that page?" Spectre asked.

"Uh, yes, ma'am.  The ones who wrote the book were very precise about
their spells."

"Give me the book."

He complied, and Spectre extended a claw and cut out the one page, then
placed the book back in its case.  "If those Agents want the book, let
them have it.  We have what we need now."  She handed the page to the
mage, who scurried off to prepare for the ritual.

"What about the demi-power?" Kicel asked.

"Don't worry, Michael will be here soon.  Keep some of your men here to
guard the book."

"Why?"

"If there's no one here, they might think something's up.  However, if
they see that we have it under guard, they'll think we still need it.
Therefore, they'll be detained trying to get the book.  And we'll have
the time we need to complete the ritual."

"Of course."  He bowed, then called over a few vampires and gave them
their instructions.

***

After two hours of searching the train from top to bottom, Michael
still hadn't seen any sign of Eric.  Finally, the train pulled into the
station at Ysalin, and he departed.  He remembered the street address
he had seen on the computer and took to the skies, intent on finding
the book and getting the hell out of there.

It didn't take him long to get there, and he wasn't disappointed.  The
building was crawling with vampires.  Two guarded the door, three
patrolled the grounds, and he could sense fourteen inside.  Not a
problem.

He waited till the three patrollers all rendevouzed at the door, then
landed near them.  They started to draw their weapons, but they were
suddenly engulfed in flames and turned to dust.

Once inside, all the guards attacked at once.  He reached out and
snapped the neck of one, then cleanly ripped out the heart of another.
The rest fell prey to similar attacks, each one turning to dust in a
matter of moments.  He advanced to the glass case, pulled back a fist,
and broke though.  His hand was covered in blood from dozens of tiny
cuts, but they mended themselves by the time he had extracted the book
from the case.  He looked through it carefully, searching for the one
thing he needed.  Bingo.  A page was missing somewhere near the end,
but it was of no consequence to him.  He pulled his cell phone from his
pocket and placed a somewhat familiar call.  "Steph.  Get over here."

She appeared a second later, looking very annoyed.  "Yeah?"

"Here."  He handed the book to her, and she took it with some
difficulty.  It was rather heavy, after all.  "Keep this thing safe."

"Sure."  She disappeared immediately with the book, leaving him alone
in a room full of dust and old furniture.

He left soon after.  In truth, he was done.  He had the book, and that
meant he could move on.  But Spectre was still out there, and his ego
had taken a blow from that loss...  What the hell, you only live once.
Why not kill some demon bitch while he was there?  He certainly knew
where to find her now.

***

"This is the place?"

"Yeah, this is it."

"What's with the dust?"

"How am I supposed to know, I'm just a computer."

Steph had returned with the location of the book.  Mewtwo suggested
that they go there and get it before Eric got back, so as to beat
Spectre to the punch, so to speak.  They went inside, and the scene
wasn't what they had expected.  The floor was covered with vampire
dust, and there was a rancid odor in the air.  They found the glass
case, minus the book.

"We need to get to the warehouse, *now*!"

They ran outside and flew across the city, everyone but Steph.  "Okay,
now that's really annoying," she muttered as she watched them fly away.
It was times like this that she wished holograms could fly.  Still, she
could transport herself anywhere she wanted, and she did just that and
teleported to the warehouse.  Maggie and Mewtwo wouldn't arrive for at
least four minutes, which meant she could fix her hair.  Or snoop,
either one.

Inside, the dust had been cleared out and the entire warehouse had been
given a good cleaning.  The gray stone walls seemed to shine somehow.
It was probably because of the two thousand-odd vampires gathered
around the pentagram.  The entire warehouse seemed bigger now, just
large enough to hold the massive amount of undead there.  The mage was
there, reading over a yellowed page and getting ready for the actual
ritual.  Next to him was another vampire, one she recognized as Kicel,
and...Spectre.

"Are you sure he's up to this?" the demoness asked Kicel.

"Of course I am, mistress," the mage replied haughtily.  "I'm a trained
professional.  I never fail."

"Well, good for you.  I'll be sure to hold you to that."  She vanished,
leaving them alone in the warehouse.

Steph vanished as well, reappeared a few blocks away, and pulled out
her cell phone.

***

Up in the air, Maggie heard a sudden chirping from inside her coat.
She reached inside and pulled out her cell phone, stopping in midair so
she could balance.  "Yeah?"  "Uh-huh."  "Right."  She put her phone
away and turned to Mewtwo.  "Land."

"Excuse me?" he replied.

"Land.  Steph wants to talk to us."

It was just then that he realized that the computer wasn't with them.
"Holograms can't fly," Maggie explained.

"Ah."

They both dropped straight out of the sky and down to the street.
Steph was waiting for them, tapping her foot impatiently.  "What the
hell took you so long?" she asked, very irritable.

"What, like we didn't *fall* fast enough?" Maggie retorted.

"Yes."

"Whatever.  What's going on?"

"The warehouse is filled with vampires, more than you two can handle.
We need to wait for Eric."

"He might not get here in time," Mewtwo observed.

"I realize that, but one Agent can mean the difference between life and
death sometimes.  Besides, from what I saw, they won't finish the
ritual for some time.  They still need a demi-power, you know."

"Okay, fine, we wait," Maggie muttered.

***

Michael flew over the city, straight towards the warehouse.  He needed
to finish off Spectre, stop the Ressurection, and get the hell out of
there so he could do a little ressurecting of his own.  The warehouse
was in his sights when suddenly a familiar cloud of darkness appeared
in front of him.  He stopped, and glared fiercely at Spectre, who just
smiled at him.

"Michael.  So good to see you again," she greeted.

"Fuck you."  He slowly moved his hand behind his back and prepared a
fireball...

"Now that's not very nice.  Listen, I need the help of a demi-power to
bring back this god these vampires keep talking about, Je'kala or
something.  If you could just sacrifice your body, and of course, your
life, we could bring him back, and I could have his power."

"Je'kala would be just as repulsed by you as I am."  The fireball grew
even hotter, turning blue and white in color.

"That's very mean, you know.  I just want to be friends.  I suppose if
you wanted to fight me, I could give you a nice time before you die."

"Then go right ahead."  Now it was pure white...almost time...

"So be it, then."  Michael suddenly threw a blood-red ball of heat at
her, faster than a bullet out of a gun, but she simply held up a hand
and caught it, then the ball evaporated.  "Now, now, we'll have plenty
of time to play, you shouldn't exhaust yourself now.  I need your
energy, you know."

"Again, fuck you!!"

He rushed her and tackled her in midair, and they fell down to the city
and through the ceiling of a broken-down office building.  She blasted
him with a fireball of her own, and he flew up through the hole, then
got out of the way of the fireball and went back on the offensive.

Spectre burst out of the building in a cloud of frost and snow and hit
Michael with an ice bolt, knocking him upwards.  She flew up faster
than he could see and hit him with an uppercut, then a fireball, all
the time causing him to fly ever upwards.

***

"It's time."

The mage reread the page once more, making sure he knew all the words
and nuances to it.  Finally, he read the first words.

"Je'kala, rel muloe, kay fa sara, helor, masiana kai so, by the blood
of the innocent, awaken!!!"


From outside, a rumbling shook the streets, causing small earthquakes
all over the city.  Suddenly, the warehouse shook violently, then it
broke free of its foundation and rose into the air, slowly, but surely.
The room suddenly exploded, bursting off the walls like a rocket, then
shattered into a million stone chips.  The walls lowered like a
drawbridge, crushing the buildings in their paths.  Finally the
warehouse rose above the level of the buildings, and the walls
flattened out.  Now the warehouse really could hold the two-thousand
beings inside; they were gathered on the walls, now floors, wearing
blood-red ceremonial robes.  The mage continued reciting the words,
inciting powerful magicks, but he was worried.  If Michael wasn't
positioned in the center of the pentagram, the spell would be disrupted
and everything they had worked for would be destroyed.

***

Spectre flew up towards the sky with Michael still recovering from a
headbutt.  A flurry of ice bolts knocked him farther up through the
stratosphere and into a permanent darkness.  Space...  The planet's
ozone layer was almost completely destroyed, and even before they left
the exosphere, there was no more oxygen.  Michael tried to fight back,
but Spectre wasn't giving him any room to breathe.  Literally.

The planet was so far below them, the continents could be seen with
just a glance.  Spectre now held him above the planet by his neck like
a rag doll and waited till his eyes drooped down to unconsciousness.
"Finally," she said, exasperated.  "I thought he'd never die."  She
released him, and he dropped down a few feet, then his arm shot out and
squeezed her throat, hard.

"Oh, by the way," Michael growled, "I don't have to breathe.  And I was
just faking."  He punched her in the stomach and released a fireball at
the same time, then spun around and kicked her in the head, knocking
her backwards a few yards.  "Now, what were you saying about me being
dead?"

She rubbed her face gingerly, then held out her hand...and a small,
blood-red fireball.  "How about I show you?"  She tossed the ball into
the air, and it exploded into a fireball over five hundred feet in
diameter.  "Now, I recall a legend about a god who died, then left
behind a spell to bring himself back.  I'm not a poet, but I think this
will fulfill the requirements of the Ressurection."

She rushed forward, knocked him down toward the planet, then threw the
fireball after him.  It hit him, but it didn't burn.  Instead, it kept
him in place, going ever-downward toward a bloody pentagram.

***

Down on the warehouse floor, the mage stared up at the ball of flame
headed toward them.  He turned the page to the opposite side and read a
lengthy, and rather important, line of poetry.

'The key to his return shall be in the blazing meteor riding atop the
demi-god.  He shall plummet to the earth in the fire of eternity,
and burn the forgotten city to the ground.'

Almost time...Michael was close...the fire kept him in place, right on
target.  "Gol, kayala, dashian, belgalla, ke'jal, co'jora!"  The
fireball hit the center of the pentagram and sent a fiery shock wave
across the floor, passing through the vampires and burning everything
outside of the warehouse.  The shock wave arched upwards and headed
toward the sky, then it, too, was set ablaze.

At the warehouse, Michael lay in the center of the pentagram, still
unconscious.  The blood that made up the pentagram suddenly pulsed with
red light, then a burst of light exploded from the trenches and shot
towards the sky.  Spectre watched all this from space, and to her, it
was a most beautiful spectacle.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Once again, both Notepad's size limit and my own decisions have cut a
very large part into two moderate-sized ones.  Which, of course, just
means I've still got some more writing to do.  No rest for the weary...

Or in other words, WHY CAN'T I SLEEP?!?!?!

Never mind.


The Master of Eternal Darkness,

Shadow