“You cheated.” The demon croaked.
Bess and Ramses chuckled. Exador shook his head thinking about how times had changed the Rod; then he smiled, obviously, he must have had some influence on the development of the Rod’s ethics.
“There is no such thing as cheating when fighting Evil.” The knight took his helmet off. He almost looked sad as he stared down at the demon.
“So you say. I disagree.” The greater demon said. The demon was smoldering a bit now. The demon let out a loud sigh and suddenly there was nothing but glowing ashes on the ground.
“Finally,” Bess stated. “The suspense was getting to me; I couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t leave.” Exador chuckled and Ramses grinned. They turned back to the drama.
“Curses!” The knight yelled. “He fled back to the Abyss!” He turned back to the group of priests that were not trying to contain the other demons. “How are the preparations going?”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” A man who appeared to be a general asked. “This is the sort of stuff that can have unintended repercussions.”
The knight sighed, “I understand Barabus, but these are clearly the root of the problem we and the Sky Fleet have pursued and we need to deal with them once and for all.”
“Do you not want to question them?” Barabus asked.
“What good is questioning demons?” Talarius asked. “We’ll get better results from their human henchmen.” Barabus was nodding as a senior priest nearby suddenly threw up.
“Are you OK?” Barabus asked. The man was seriously pale and shaking his head no, he was gasping and too weak to speak. Another high priest suddenly turned pale and fell on the ground vomiting. Then another, and then a fourth high priest.
“What the hell is going on?” Talarius was looking around. “Verigas? What’s wrong?”
The high priest named Verigas was very rigid and saying nothing, it was like he was locked in some sort of internal struggle.
“Oh, this is a strange turn.” Bess stated. “I’m really glad we didn’t tune out. I’m thinking this is even more interesting than our spat with Lenamare.”
Exador glared at her, aside from distracting him from the spectacle below, she was taking her eye off the real prize, the book.
Ramses just chuckled.
“I wish I had some popcorn!” Bess told the others.
The high priest Verigas seemed to wake from his trance and turned to face Talarius.
“Well, knight, you said that in the battle with Evil, there is no such thing as cheating.”
Talarius looked at the priest strangely, clearing sensing something was not right. “So, I’ve decided to pull out all the stops.” The priest said.
“Verigas, what the hell are you talking about?” Barabus asked the high priest.
Verigas smiled a rather wicked looking smile. “What makes you think I’m Verigas? Where are your paranoid conspiracy theories now when you need them? You’ve really pissed me off, Talarius: you cheated; you have no honor, no integrity.”
“Oh shit.” Talarius stated, the blood draining from his face.
Suddenly the embers where the greater demon had fallen burst into flame. A whirlwind of embers and smoke rose into the air over the site of the fallen demon. Suddenly the smoke and embers joined into flame, growing and growing. The knight and priests stared as the flames grew and melded into a humanoid form, a large humanoid form.
The high priest Verigas let out a shriek and fell to the ground, collapsing in a heap like a discarded marionette. No one moved to attend him.
The flames grew to twelve feet tall and then solidified in the form of the demon they had just defeated.
“I’m afraid you won’t get rid of me that easy, Talarius.” The demon grinned.
“Oh, goody, round two!” Bess shouted with joy.
Tom smiled at the shocked knight and the priests who were still unaware of what was going on amongst their ranks. He wanted to enjoy their shock while he rebuilt his mana supply and solidified his hold on the Rod members he was infiltrating. He was busy gulping in as much mana from the umbilical cords as he could.
The trick had been the Holy Arrows. They had provided the needles to the umbilical cords. He’d managed to object link them to himself and then somehow, lift them, telekinetically or something to the mana cords and pierce them.
Once inside he’d managed to send his mana, guided by some animus, he guessed, downward into the priests below; he’d had no desire to go the other direction. He had forced himself to spread quickly through the links to the people below the priest; and was still doing that, letting himself flow among them.
He’d then proceeded on to other high priests and their umbilical cords to heaven. He’d gotten five of them, including Verigas. He worked to secure his connections to the high priests and their lower priest as fast as he could. Once he felt tethered, that’s when he felt confident enough to start diverting the mana for himself. The process seemed to take forever, but in reality must have only been a few minutes.
It was when he turned on the mana flow, started sucking it in for himself that the high priests had started dropping. It probably didn’t feel too good, Tom had laughed to himself. Verigas was the last high priest he’d tapped and he’d suddenly remembered his discussion with Rupert about possession. He had been, and still was, pouring parts of himself into everyone in the chain; creating personal links to them; he decided to put a lot more into Verigas.
It had been a struggle, but he’d managed to somehow seize control of Verigas by pouring his essence into the priest and suppressing the priest’s consciousness. It was very weird, and very taxing, but he now had a huge mana stream to draw on, which helped considerably.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t really enough of him to go around to both possess Verigas and inhabit his own body; so he’d had to release Verigas from his control to inhabit his own form; he kept the mana tap of course.
“So, you’re back?” Talarius stated, putting his helmet back on.
“Yes, I am, and you cheated.” Tom shook his head. “Seems to me that violates the Knight’s Code of Ethics?” The knight winced slightly this time.
The knight sighed, “As I’ve said, there can be no mercy in fighting Evil.”
“I suppose then, it’s a matter of how, or who, you define as Evil.” Tom stated. “Personally, I’m getting tired of being called Evil, when there are plenty of other people around behaving far more dishonorably and despicably than me.”
The knight got a steely look in his eyes. “Enough of your prevarication, demon. I’ve slain you once; I’ll do it again.”
“Not if I cheat first.” Tom said softly, but still loud enough for the knight to hear. “Fire!” Tom commanded. In his mind, he projected an image of Talarius as a god forsaken evil that had to be destroyed. They had to destroy him.
Suddenly large numbers of archers among the Rod raised their bows and began raining arrows upon Talarius. Some were the same hollow arrows from before, and others were more traditional.
Tom had hoped mostly for shock and distraction, what he hadn’t counted on was that the Blessed Arrows of the Rod couldn’t be stopped by the Blessed Armor of Talarius; to all intents and purposes, the two sets of blessings canceled each other out.
Talarius fell to his knees, crouching and covering himself with his shield as best he could, trying to minimize the exposed parts of his body. While he did this, Tom flew over to the net and quickly ripped it to shreds. “Get ready to move on my mark; there will be a few more surprises I have planned.” Tom was going to try to give the knight one more chance; if the knight didn’t take it, it would be time for plan B.