Heretical Edge

My first, instinctive response in that moment was to adopt as casual a tone as I could manage while replying, “Well, I’d love to put someone down for you if you’re asking for help, but I’ll need more details than just ‘him.’”

For some reason, neither Katarin nor the other Boschers were amused by my deliberate misunderstanding. And they didn’t take the bait of responding so I could have time to think of something else to do. Six glass-like red arrows came shooting straight toward me, from two different directions. Those were accompanied by a diamond-like spear erupting from the ground right in front of me, angled toward my stomach, a cloud of toxic gas that hissed into existence around my face, some sort of invisible telekinetic grip attempting to hold me right where I was, and a trio of regular old bullets. All of it coming with no negotiation, no talking it through. Straight to trying to kill me.

I was going through a lot of distracting emotions and thoughts in that particular moment. Katarin was here. He was alive. Well, no shit, it would be decades from now at least, if not over a century, before he was murdered by Isaac. Not only was he right here in front of me, he knew my name. Or, rather, he knew Jacob’s, and recognized him on-sight. Not to mention, he also wanted to kill him on-sight. That was-- yeah I had no idea what to do with that. He’d clearly either met me before or I’d made an impression on someone else he knew. And whatever had happened there, or was happening there, depending on how I looked at it, had made enough of an impression to convince the man to immediately order his people to kill me without waiting for a single introduction or comment.

Well, obviously I wasn't just going to stand around and let that happen. The shattered, broken remains of the building were surrounded by what had to be Boschers, all of whom were about to put everything they had into making me have a very bad day. Fortunately, none of the Committee were here, and Katarin himself was around a hundred years younger than he had been as my combat instructor. I just wished I knew enough about the man's history to have any idea how much of a difference that would make. But right now, I had to focus on getting the hell out of here.

On the plus side, I was pretty sure all these people were too focused on me to think too much about whether anyone else was here. Miranda and Tabbris had stayed quiet since I made them invisible. I had no idea what they were doing or thinking right now. I’d have to explain all this later.

Yeah, there was a lot I was going to have to explain, whenever a free moment presented itself.

I knew the gas was poisonous as soon as I smelled it. That power I’d gotten so long ago allowed that much instantly. But that was basically the least of my issues. I could hold my breath for at least ten minutes by this point. I’d deal with the gas as soon as I managed to survive the rest.

Teleporting was out. They were doing something to block that. Of course they were. If there was anything Boschers were accustomed to, it was employing various ways of making sure their quarry couldn’t easily escape. So I couldn’t just grab the other two and skedaddle instantly.

Katarin didn’t know about my acceleration rings, I’d gotten those after he… after he was gone. So, both of those spun away from my pocket and grew, each moving to either side to intercept one of the incoming trios of red glass arrows. The slow-down side was facing them, dropping the arrows to half their normal speed. Which meant, when they exploded into fireballs a second later, they were still too far away from me to actually do the damage they were supposed to.

At the exact same time, that diamond-like spear came rushing up toward my stomach. But Penny Dreadful was already moving, hurtling her small body right at the thing. At the last second, I shoved a burst of extra energy from my vast reserves into her, making the tiny undead super-golem literally glow brightly just before she slammed full on into the diamond spear, snapping it off the very non-diamond ground and knocking the thing out of my way.

The musket balls I just allowed to come through and slam into me. Not that they accomplished much. Extra used her kinetic-absorption power to take in all that power, transforming the full force of their impact into a speed and strength boost. Enough of one for us to casually rip our way free of the telekinetic hold that was attempting to trap us in place. Which was helped by the fact that she also lowered our weight to one-quarter what it should have been. Between that and the strength boost, it was certainly incredibly easy to move, telekinetic grip be damned.

Katarin was probably the biggest threat, which was why the second he started to move after talking about putting me down, the man had been basically smothered in ghosts. Ten of them right off the bat, all slamming into the man together. Even with his vast strength and size, he was forced to cede ground, stumbling back a bit before summoning a blast of ghost-fire that tore through four of those ghosts instantly. Even though I knew they weren’t gone gone, just temporarily disabled, it was still enough to make me wince just a little. I didn’t like it when my ghosts got hurt.

Still, there wasn’t time to focus on any of that. Not right now. I still had six ghosts keeping Katarin busy for a second, and they were immediately joined by another ten as backup. Yes, he would tear his way through them. But it was just temporary. They only had to last long enough to slow the man down for a couple incredibly precious seconds. That was what really mattered right now.

Pivoting on one foot, I brought one hand up with that blue gemstone set between two fingers so I could see through it as my turn allowed me to take in each of the other Boschers. I didn’t need to see Katarin to know he was important to the timeline. But the others… well, only one showed up as not important to keeping the future intact. It was the guy with the guns.

Boy did the men react to that. As soon as they saw me holding that stone, one bellowed what sounded an awful lot like a half-panicked, “Judging! He’s judging!” Then he transformed into a cloud of smoke, flew up out of the way, and was gone. Gone. He wasn’t circling around, wasn’t looking for an opening, he saw me holding the stone, panicked, and ran away.

Huh.

By that point, I’d finished my pivot to bring myself all the way around. Immediately, I extended my staff and triggered that wind spell, sending a hurricane gust straight through the nearest two Boschers. Not that the wind by itself was the real problem for them. They might have been on the younger side, but a little one hundred and fifty mile per hour gust wasn't going to send them flying. It did, however, pick up a whole bunch of dirt and debris, showering them with it and forcing the pair to stagger backwards while turning their eyes away reflexively.

The Boscher with the twin rapid-firing pistols (the one my stone said didn’t have to survive) was aiming to take another shot, unaware of just how much he had actually helped me. I left him alone for the moment. Let him keep charging me up with his bullets if he wanted to. But the guy next to him was conjuring some sort of ice-ball between his hands. Which seemed like a bad idea to just ignore. So, I created a tiny portal right behind the opposite side of my staff, the end I wasn’t projecting that wind spell through. The portal led to a spot directly above and in front of the ice man, facing him at an angle that way. A simple touch against the button on the staff sent a burst of charged-up kinetic force into the man, strong enough to knock him onto his back with a cry, sending his ice ball harmlessly into the air. Before he could recover, four more ghosts appeared, grabbing the man by his arms and legs before literally flying him up and forward out of the rubble. By the time he managed to get his wits about him and summon a ball of ghost-fire, they’d already taken him a good couple hundred yards down the street. Not enough to keep him away forever, but at least he wasn’t an immediate threat.

In that same second, four more musket balls slammed into my back. But again, they meant nothing. Extra absorbed the impact. Now we were even more charged up. The boost from those first shots hadn't worn off yet. Which meant I was strong and fast enough in that moment to easily pivot aside from the Boscher who had thought he was sneakily running up behind me, release my staff to grab the man’s extended arm with one hand and the seat of his pants with the other, and hoist him off the ground. Using a mix of my own heightened strength and the Boscher’s momentum, I hurled him across the length of this broken building to crash into one of the other men with enough force to take them both to the ground. A second later, two dozen dead and mostly-decomposed rats that I had detected buried underground came ripping their way to the surface, enveloping the men. Suddenly, they were far more interested in destroying the rat skeleton zombie things than they were in attacking me. For a couple seconds anyway.

It was two seconds that I used to my advantage by bringing half a dozen of my ghosts around me before triggering a very different stored spell from my staff. This one transformed the ghosts to look like me. Or at least, my Jacob self. It wasn’t a perfect disguise given if someone looked closely enough they’d be able to tell the disguised ghost was semi-transparent. But in the immediate heat of a fight, it would help. Especially given the dust and smoke swirling around through the air.

The man with the pistols was aiming at one of those disguised ghosts, putting half a dozen shots through their head. Yet even as the intangible figure broke apart like mist, I put myself right where it had been, going straight through the figure before the Boscher could react. My fist lashed out, colliding with his face with all the extra strength he had given me between the earlier shots and the six he had just nailed me with by shooting through the ghost-me. The blow shattered the man’s nose, rocking his head backward while the pistols fell from his limp hands. I caught them before they fell, releasing my staff while making it stay in place so I could take the falling guns, point them at myself, and unload.

Now I was really charged, about as boosted as I could get. Enough that, as two more Boschers recovered and started to come after me, I was able to snap my arms to either side and hurl those pistols with enough force to break right through their defenses. The weapons slammed into the men, doubling them over as the wind was knocked out of them.

Meanwhile, the now-disarmed guy in front of me was spitting blood from his mouth as he snapped his head back, eyes searching for me through an obvious dark haze. I was pretty sure I’d hit him hard enough that he almost lost consciousness. About half the teeth in his mouth had been knocked out in that single punch, several littering the ground where he had spat them during his recoil.

He was summoning some sort of electrical blade thing in one hand as he came back around. But I didn’t let him get that far. With my staff still hovering in place where I had frozen it so I could grab those falling pistols, I used my super-charged boost to catch the man’s rising arm, pivoting around him so my other hand could grab the back of his neck. He was too stunned from that first blow to defend himself properly, even as I hoisted him off the ground. By the time he even realized how much trouble he was in, I had hurtled him forward so his body would impale itself on my staff.

In that moment, I felt the rush of his power filling me. It wasn’t exactly like when I had been a Boscher. There wasn’t that almost-sexual burst of pleasure. But it tasted good. This was what it was like when a Reaper absorbed death. It was a treat.

By that moment, Katarin had finished ghost-fire bursting his way through all my distracting ghost-selves. He saw the dying man on the staff before bellowing with incoherent rage. With a grunt, he vanished from where he was standing, appearing in front of me, fist already coming straight at my head. No, not just his fist. He had some sort of spiked, enchanted gloves on. The metal bits on his knuckles were glowing with power. Kinetic-absorption or not, I was pretty sure I didn’t want those things to hit me.

Fortunately, I didn’t just have a strength boost from those musket shots. My speed was charged up too. Which I added to in that second by triggering my Seosten boost, making me, at least temporarily, fast enough to snap my head away from that blindingly-quick incoming punch so the big man’s fist went sailing past my face. Before he could yank his fist back or adjust, I grabbed his arm. That immediately turned out to be a mistake. The instant I touched him, a burst of electricity slammed into and through my body. If I hadn’t been resistant to electricity, it would’ve put me down. As it was, I staggered a bit, stunned. And that would’ve been the end of me, as Katarin’s other fist came down straight at my head before I could recover from that shock.

But the fist never hit me. Just before it could, some sort of jelly-like orb about the size of a basketball appeared between us. His descending fist struck the quivering orb and stuck there briefly, before the power in his glove made it burst apart, showering us with warm goo.

Miranda, I belatedly realized when my item-sense picked up the invisible girl pointing our way after picking herself up off the ground. I wasn’t sure what power she had used, exactly, but the jelly orb that was capable of actually stopping Katarin’s fist in mid-swing definitely came from her. She had stepped in to help me actually survive in that moment, without exposing herself.

Or at least, without exposing her identity. Exposing her presence was a different story. Katarin had been too distracted to notice her before, too focused on coming after me. But the second his fist shattered the jelly orb, he was already spinning that way. “He has minions here!” His voice bellowed that, even as he began to summon a blast of red-tinted energy to send that way, straight toward Miranda.

Yeah, I wasn't sure how she was going to react to being called my minion, but we could go over that later. For the moment, I focused on making sure she wouldn't die. Which meant putting myself in the path of that energy. I still couldn't teleport, not with whatever protection against that they had up still running. But with my speed boost, I was able to flip myself up and over the man while he was still in the midst of extending his arm and summoning the energy. As I passed over his head, Extra switched from making our weight a quarter of what it should have been, to three times normal. Our size didn’t change, but we suddenly weighed much more. Which brought us slamming to the ground quickly enough to put ourselves directly between Katarin and Miranda, just as he unleashed that red-tinted blast. In that same moment, I focused on my energy-absorption power, praying that it would be enough to keep me alive through all that.

It worked. I felt the energy flood into me, my skin practically vibrating as I took that blast full force. Instantly, I expended it. But I didn't put it into a return blast to send right back at the man. Instead, I sent all that power into my ghosts. All my ghosts. All the ones I had handy in that moment anyway. Which meant three hundred apparitions suddenly came into view, like a tornado of semi-transparent figures swarming away from me and flying off in every direction. Not all of them were at full strength, not even with that charged burst. But they were strong enough to be an immediate problem for these guys.

Katarin was quick enough to summon another ball of ghost-fire, which tore through ten of my ghosts in an instant. But six more got through, catching both of his arms. Another five joined in, followed by six more. Soon, almost twenty of the ghosts were dragging the man backward away from me in a tangled mess. He ghost-fired half of them, but the other half kept going, and were joined by several more to make up for the ones he had temporarily disintegrated. In the span of just a couple seconds, Katarin was pulled twenty, thirty, forty feet away from me.

The rest of his people weren't exactly faring much better. It had been obvious from the start that he was the strongest among them. And right now, my empowered ghosts were swarming all over them, yanking the Boschers to the ground, dragging them through the shattered walls, disarming them or just punching them. They might have had a wide array of powers, but I had the advantage of numbers. Especially right now, after using that blast from Katarin to supercharge my little army. Not counting that one guy who had been dragged away a few seconds earlier, the one who had transformed into smoke to run away, and the one I had… well, killed, there were six Boschers here including Katarin. All of them, in that moment, suddenly had more important things to deal with besides focusing on me. Ghosts were good for that sort of temporary distraction.

Obviously, I took advantage of that distraction the best way I could, by creating a small portal leading from my hand to one of the flailing men. While they were all focused on fighting the ghost army, I possessed the man very briefly. I couldn't afford to let them realize what had happened, so I knocked him unconscious the second I was in his head. He wouldn't realize I had possessed him, and the others were too occupied to notice anything other than the fact that I temporarily disappeared. If they even noticed that much.

While possessing the man, I quickly searched his memory to find out how they were blocking my teleportation. Katarin. It was Katarin, he had some sort of--belt. The teleportation blocker was on his belt, clipped onto the backside of the thing and hidden thanks to his long jacket.

Well, I definitely had to do something about that. Allowing this guy to finish collapsing to the ground, I summoned a swarm of ghosts around us to obscure the view so the already-distracted Boschers wouldn’t notice as I stepped out of him. The next time they saw me, I was striding through that swarm of ghosts, which parted around me so I could point my recalled staff straight at Katarin while my coat billowed behind me. The ghosts who had been flooding over him (at least, the ones he hadn’t already torn through) immediately vanished, leaving the man flat-footed just before I triggered another spell that I had put into that special magic-storing metal. This one was very different from the tornado spell. Instead of wind, it summoned a ball of blue-green fire that went flying straight at the man. He, of course, intercepted it with his own fireball, making the two explode between us in a truly spectacular display of heat and light. My spell was gone.

But that was fine, because intercepting it was exactly what I had wanted him to do. It distracted the man just enough that he was taken by surprise as another dozen ghosts appeared around him. They grabbed the man’s arms, yanking them up and hauling the man about a foot off the ground while he grunted in surprise.

That didn’t last long, of course. He instantly triggered another ball of ghost-fire to envelop him, making the ghosts vanish. But it didn’t need to last long. In that brief second while he was being held off the ground, Penny Dreadful struck. She had been lurking in the shadows, crawling around out of the way as she waited for an opening. Now, with Katarin held up in the air, she lunged at the man from behind. She was more like an animal at that moment, mouth wide open before chomping down on… his belt. Or rather, on the thing attached to the back of his belt. It was a crystal of some sort, and Penny Dreadful bit right through it. The thing shattered like glass under her powerful teeth.

Katarin knew what had happened immediately, of course. He bellowed a warning, but I didn’t waste a second. The instant the crystal shattered, I teleported over to where Tabbris and Miranda were. A snapped word recalled PD and made my ghosts disappear.

Dropping back to the ground, Katarin raised his hand to point at me, mouth open with a shout right on his lips. But I didn’t wait around to see what he wanted to say. Instead, I focused on a view I remembered from a few minutes earlier when we had been standing on top of the now-destroyed building, a view of a street on the far side of the city, well away from this place.

And just like that, we were gone. I heard the start of Katarin’s bellowed threat, but it didn’t matter. We left him, and the rest of those Heretics, behind.

Now we were in another alley, far from those guys. Still, I didn’t exactly rest just yet. Knowing Boschers could track teleportation signs if we weren’t careful, I took us through four more quick jumps, three of which were very far away indeed, scattered across North America before making a final jump back to London to a different spot I remembered from looking around on that roof. Five teleportation jumps, including several on a completely different continent. There was no way Katarin and his people could track us that far. Not soon enough to matter anyway.

Dismissing the invisibility spell on the other two, I stood there, facing them. We were in the shadows of a tall building, tucked away from the busy street. Safe, for the moment.

“Oookay,” I started while panting just a bit, hearing my own Jacob voice while the two stared at me.

“I… uhh, I guess I owe you guys an explanation, huh?”