Chapter 24: First Blood

  Turning, Cole studied the group that had appeared behind them. His authority stat hadn’t warned him of danger, he wasn’t sure why. Maybe because the group of four hadn’t actually attacked them yet. They had hidden behind an overturned van that had been parked outside the pharmacy.

  The van sat on its side, one wheel still turning lazily. Its exposed undercarriage was packed with street grime and torn plastic.

  Cole hadn’t heard their footsteps. That was the part that bothered him. He’d been listening. He always listened now. But the city was full of little sounds, the wind pushing paper along the curb, glass ticking when it shifted, a distant creak from a sign that refused to fall.

  The one who had spoken had a nasty grin. He wore a crude leather coat, clearly crafted, and there was patch sewn into the corner right shoulder. A red demon skull with horns.

  The patch was clean compared to the rest of him. Fresh thread. Fresh dye. Whoever made it had wanted it to stand out. Wanted it seen.

  The man himself was bald, darker skinned, with bright amber eyes. He wielded a sawed off shotgun, and a cleaver was at his belt. He was solid.

  The shotgun looked old, but cared for. The metal had been wiped down, the wood sanded smooth where hands had held it too many times. The cleaver’s handle was wrapped in tape, and the blade had little nicks in it that told a story Cole didn’t want to hear.

  Those amber eyes didn’t blink much. They tracked, sharp and amused.

  The three behind him were big, wearing the same kind of leathers, with pistols, and knives.

  They stood there in a loose line, shoulders squared, weapons half ready, seeming bored by the routine. One of them rolled his jaw chewing something. Another flexed his fingers on the grip of his pistol.

  “Who are you?” Cole asked.

  His voice came out steady. It thumped in his ears. He kept his staff grounded at his side. He didn’t want to be the one who turned it into a killing.

  “Don’t matter who I am, bucko. This is Wrath territory. So how’s about you drop all your stuff, including that staff, and we might let ya go on yer way, eh?” He grinned wide when he said it, revealing nasty yellow teeth, chipped in places.

  Wrath territory.

  They’d carved the city into little kingdoms already. The apocalypse was just a new map to draw lines on.

  The man’s grin widened. He shifted the shotgun slightly.

  Cole held his ground like the sidewalk belonged to him as much as it belonged to anyone.

  “Are you able to analyze him?” He asked Stephan.

  Stephan was just behind Cole’s shoulder. Cole could feel the hesitation without looking at him. That tiny pause where a normal person had to remind themselves they weren’t normal anymore.

  The man nodded, then swallowed.

  “Yeah. It tells me his name is Rorick Donaldson, a bruiser, level 3.”

  Cole nodded, then flicked his eyes to Rorick.

  Level 3. Enough to be dangerous.

  Cole didn’t show any reaction.

  “All of you, step inside the pharmacy. If you notice monsters, run out here. If you don’t, look around, cautiously. I’ll handle this.”

  He kept his voice low, controlled. A simple directive. No panic in it. No debate.

  They all nodded.

  Brent was first to move. Stephan followed, then the others. Their boots crunched over glass near the door, and the sound felt too loud in the still air. Cole didn’t turn to watch them go. He trusted them to do what they had to do.

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  Rorick watched them too, and something ugly tightened at the corners of his grin.

  “No one is goin’ anywhere,” Rorick snarled, raising his pistol and firing.

  Cole was ready.

  “Ashen Aegis.”

  The bullet stopped dead as it flew toward Cole. An unseen shield, seemingly whispering a gentle “No,” stopped the bullet in the air.

  It hung there in front of Cole’s face, spinning slowly, close enough that he could see the dull smear of grime along its casing. Close enough that he could smell the faint acrid bite of gunpowder.

  For a heartbeat, time held its breath.

  Rorick’s grin faltered.

  One of the goons blinked hard.

  Cole let the bullet drop. It hit the pavement with a small metallic click that felt louder than the gunshot had.

  “Choir of Verdict,” Cole uttered with a serene calm as his companions slipped into the store.

  The spell settled over the four men.

  Rorick and his goons stopped cold, confusion writing itself on their faces.

  They just… stopped.

  Their bodies locked. Their eyes widened. Their hands tensed around weapons they couldn’t lift. One of the goons tried to take a step and failed, boot scraping the ground an inch before the motion died.

  Rorick’s amber eyes flicked down, then up, then down again.

  Cole leaned on his staff, suddenly tired. He didn’t want to kill these men. Monsters were one thing, but men were quite different.

  He could hear the pharmacy door swing a little inside, then settle. Glass crunched under someone’s careful step. The others were moving. They were doing what he told them. Good.

  Now it was just Cole and these four.

  There was no question they were bad men. No one would miss them. You could even argue that Cole would be doing them a favor.

  He knew that argument. He could feel how easily his mind wanted to accept it. How convenient it was. How clean it sounded.

  Despite the single attribute he could use, despite the spells he cast that gave off feelings of judgement, that wasn’t a role Cole felt comfortable being in.

  The halo wasn’t over his head now, but he felt the weight of it anyway. The idea of it. The implication.

  Who was he to pass judgement of these men? He was a man like any other. He had made mistakes in his life, hurt others, had dark thoughts and desires. Sure, he didn’t give into them. He tried to be a decent person, but he was flawed.

  And that was the problem. He knew his own darkness. He’d stared at it in quiet moments when he couldn’t sleep. He’d fought it in ways no one else ever saw.

  So these men were more flawed, if you wanted to argue that. Evil maybe, but how could he justify passing such judgement? Just because he was less evil, less flawed?

  Cole’s grip tightened on the staff. The Crozier felt steady in his hand. Solid. Real.

  Rorick did care, in his own way. He strained against the Choir, face twisting as he realized he couldn’t move. His grin vanished entirely now, replaced by something sharper and meaner.

  Cole looked at him and made himself speak before the spell faded. Before he had to choose with less time.

  “Leave. I don’t want to hurt you. But if you make me, it will be final.”

  For a second, Rorick just stared, breathing through his nose, eyes bright with hate.

  Then the Choir began to thin. Cole felt it easing. The verdict wasn’t meant to hold forever. It was meant to stop, to give you a moment.

  Rorick felt it too.

  “Bitch, let me show ya final!” Rorick pointed his shotgun at Cole as the spell faded.

  Cole didn’t give him the chance.

  The Crozier hummed in his hand, their shadows seemed to brighten, all in less than a second.

  The shadows around Cole deepened.

  “Black Halo Lance.” He said calmly.

  Their shadows became their death, the seraphic light lancing forward like stabbing blades.

  Shadow lines sharpened into weapons and surged forward all at once.

  Two of the goons didn’t even have time to scream.

  They stiffened, eyes wide, then their bodies fell apart into ash in a breath, collapsing where they stood. Gray piles hit the pavement with soft, ugly little puffs.

  The third goon got half a sound out, a rough choke, before he went the same way. Ash. Nothing left but drifting dust and the faint stink of something scorched.

  Rorick seemed to sense something was happening, and jerked. His patch flared, and Cole’s shadows were rebuffed.

  The demon skull patch on his shoulder lit red. Heat shimmered around it for a split second, and Cole felt the lance strike something that wasn’t flesh.

  A barrier.

  The seraphic light snapped away from Rorick.

  The thug cried out, he tripped backward.

  His shotgun fired into the air as he fell, the blast deafening in the open street, pellets chewing into a sign above the pharmacy door and sending a shower of grit and splinters down.

  He landed hard.

  He landed on piles of ash that were his former compatriots.

  Rorick’s eyes widened.

  For the first time, the nasty grin was gone completely. There was only raw shock. He stared at the ash with disbelief.

  Cole held up a hand to finish it, but Rorick turned to smoke.

  One moment he was a man on his back in the street, surrounded by ash and broken glass. The next moment he was a twist of dark smoke that spun upward and vanished into the air.

  Cole frowned, walking forward, trying to see if he could find him. Nowhere to be found.

  No footsteps. No shadow sliding away. No body behind the van.

  Just absence.

  Cole’s jaw tightened. He scanned the street, the rooftops, the alley mouth beside the pharmacy, the broken windows. He listened for a cough, for a shuffle, for anything.

  Nothing.

  Only the faint creak of the overturned van settling, and the distant rattle of loose signage in the wind.

  Cole sighed, looking at the ash.

  The piles were still warm. He could see it in the way the dust shifted, in the faint wisps that rose and vanished. Three human shapes reduced to gray in seconds.

  He hadn’t meant to do that.

  He’d meant to stop them. To scare them off. To make them run.

  But he’d given Rorick a choice, and Rorick had answered with a shotgun.

  He stood there with his staff in hand, staring at what was left, feeling the weight of it settle in his chest.

  Cole Rourke had taken his first human lives.