Site-666, Las Vegas, Fourth Ring of Hell
"Biggest regrets, huh?" Randall House shook his glass of bourbon, then his head.
Alice Sterling shrugged, and crossed her legs. "What else do you want to do drunk, have fun? Come on. Spill. None of us will remember it anyway."
"Or," Agent Calendar chimed in, her face a positively wolfish grin, "we could go to town and destroy things!" Tonight's deployment had made her more than sick of following the work schedule, let alone its rules.
House and Sterling glared at her. "Or, we could stay indoors and get drunk like the responsible adults we are," the latter said. Calendar frowned. "Besides," Sterling continued, turning to face the two-meter-tall-demon, "depending on how it goes, this could prove even more damaging." Calendar's grin reappeared.
House leaned harder into his chair, staring at the ceiling. "I'm… I'm honestly not sure? I guess something with—"
"Oh, that's a no-brainer." Calendar snapped her fingers. "The time I accidentally missed making out with a faerie Queen."
As if on command, House and Sterling blinked twice, then shook their heads. For a few seconds, nobody spoke — Calendar's smile, though, now almost wider than her face, was worth more than a thousand words.
"You know you can't just say that and not elaborate, right?" Sterling said, raising an eyebrow.
"Right. Yeah, okay." Calendar cleared her throat. "So it's a few years ago, and I've still got unfinished business with the Carters…"
The Obelisk, Las Vegas, Fourth Ring of Hell
The circle engraved on the cold marble floor came to life with a silent buzz of energy powerful enough to raise hair. The myriad intricate patterns molded into its construction glowed with white light, illuminating the dark room all around them. After just a few seconds, the shapes snapped into appropriate thaumic positions, more than ready to contain whatever was to be made manifest inside its boundaries. They had done it before, and tonight would be no different.
The hooded man that stood above the circle cleared his throat, put his hands together, and started chanting in a language that hadn't been heard in over a century. He crouched, touched the ritual site before him, and felt the connection between him and the shape stabilize itself within an instant. Even more silent energy buzzed between them, the man now actively pouring his will own into the shape, and before he could blink, the runes answered his call. Already feeling the smell of sulfur all around him, he quickly stood up and covered his face.
To the sound of anguished souls and the scent of fire and brimstone, red lighting appeared inside the circle. When the light died down, the circle was no longer empty — inside it stood a red-skinned mass of horn and muscles, its hungry gaze focused only on the one who had dared to summon it.
Agent Calendar smiled, and waved her hand. "Hi, Mr. Carter!"
From behind his hood, Robert Carter sighed and massaged his temple. He was sure that the spell instructions his father had left him made it so that the summoned servant could not tell who actually brought it into service. Whether he had simply failed at executing those instructions (which was a very real possibility, considering his utter lack of magical talent and the fact he was performing the rite for the first time in his life) — or whether his father had used them so many times that the demon easily recognized their magic imprint — he could not quite tell.
"Hello to you too, servant," he muttered, a tinge of annoyance present in his voice.
Calendar skewed her head, and pointed at Carter's. "Did you change your haircut? You look different than the last time we—"
"No. I mean yes. I mean—" Carter sighed, took a quick breath, put his hands together, and looked directly into Calendar's eyes. "Listen, demon. I am not here to chat. You have dues you owe to my bloodline. I am here to collect them."
She skewed her head even more. "And you okay with me still doing them, with my new boss and all that?"
Carter squinted his eyes, and resisted the urge to sigh again. He had already been aware magic wasn't exactly easy, but he wasn't expecting this much nonsense from what was supposed to be a banal task. "Look, I don't care who you work for now, but our contracts run longer — and deeper. You will serve me, demon." He tried to pronounce the last word in a menacing manner. He failed utterly, but continued regardless, "Unless you want me to—"
"Just show me the guy, and I'll take care of the rest," she said, practically beaming with enthusiasm from finally getting to do something fun. Calendar's mood was the exact opposite of what Carter had anticipated — out of all things he thought the demon assassin his father had described would be, excited to do the job wasn't one of them. "Or gal, I guess. Or pal. Or…"
She continued speaking, but Carter wasn't listening; instead, from underneath his robes, he took out a series of photos. They depicted two tall women atop two cars, racing across a colosseum built by his people in the heart of Three Portlands. They both stood in smoke which made identifying them more than difficult, but their trademark features remained unveiled by the chaotic environment of the race around them. Even among all those explosions and mayhem, he could still see the sports journalist entry card and pointy ears they both respectively had. He passed the photos to Calendar.
"These two," he uttered, almost unable to withhold his rage. "They ruined an event held in my name. In my name!"
Calendar popped her lips. "Damn."
"The first one I've already captured and taken care of, but it's your job to bring this one before me." He pointed at the one with the elongated ears. "Dead or alive, I don't care. I want her to answer for what she has done."
"Right. Sure, I can do that." She leaned a little closer towards the photos, narrowing her eyes. "Why not just… send your own men, though. Wouldn't that be easier. It seems like it'd be easier."
"She's a dangerous asset. Potent wizard, or at least seems like one from what she did at the race. If what my father had written about you is true, I've no doubt that you can handle her well. I don't have the same certainty with my own people."
"Sure. Which way do you want me to handle this? You know, by killing her or—"
Carter waved his hand. "Do literally whatever you want. I don't care. Just have it done, as our contract dictates."
Something akin to a sudden realization, then excitement ran across Calendar's eyes. She grinned. "You got it."
And then, as the runes inside the circle stopped glowing, another wave of red lighting ran inside the rite, and Agent Calendar was gone.
Outside the Three Portlands Darkport, Three Portlands
The thing that called itself Queen Mab was dying.
She could feel it, in every part of her fatally mortal self. Before, she had disillusioned herself that the body of Felicity Baudin — the body she had taken as her own when summoned into this world — could act as a good enough host for her being. One good enough until she reunited with the rest of her soul, that was. But now — after drying it out of all of its magic and suffering a separation of the body and the soul at the peak of the race she had just escaped, and harrowing her mind by visiting the grave of her only friend — she could feel how wrong she had been in every bone, every muscle, and every neuron that chained her perfection to the limits of this physical world.
Her outer shell was burning, its mortal form unable to truly handle the soul of a Fae Queen. The grotesque demigod parasite which was embedded within its cells was a square peg — the form that tried to contain it, a round hole. And that fire — that terrible, awful fire burning deep inside her being, unable to understand where or who it was — it hurt. Hurt so much that for the first time in millennia, Mab could feel her heartbeat deep inside her ears.
With a trembling hand, Mab reached for her chest, and felt the silent scent of death, ever so slowly behind her.
She could not allow this.
She blinked twice, and called forth all of the power that still lay dormant at the bottom of her soul. The shot of pure adrenaline — of pure, unfiltered power — that ran right through her veins and into a mind that was not her own made her stand up once more. She would not die here. This part of her — this mere representation of her full form, a small shard of Mab's true being — was called here for a reason. Fate did not grant her this chance at reclaiming her Empire only to make her meet the End like some dog. Not even the everpresent agony could stop her from reaching what was written as her destiny right in the stars above.
As she realized this, she immediately stopped wobbling on those pathetic legs. There was no time to do this, here and now. She had work to do.
Queen Mab smiled the grin of a hungry wolf, opened her eyes again, and took the first step forward, ready to reclaim her world.
The second she raised her head towards the stars that awaited the return of their empress, red light appeared out of nowhere before her eyes. Sudden force equivalent to that of a speeding bus pressed against her forehead, forcing it to come down once again.
To the sound of a sickening crunch, Mab's head met the pavement below her.
"Hi!" Agent Calendar said, grabbing Mab by her silver hair. She lifted her up, making their eyes meet. Calendar grinned and threw her head forward once more, this time aiming for a curb.
The impact did not come.
Mab ground her teeth and shot her own hand upwards, her knuckles infused with words of burning Power. Too shocked at her target actually fighting back to dodge, Calendar blinked, infinitesimally confused for just a second. A second long enough for the punch, empowered with lightning, to hit her straight in the jaw.
"Shit!" Calendar uttered out through the now-bruised face, and took a few steps back. Mab didn't waste any time; she regained her posture, already sending sparks of pure unfiltered will into the palms of her hands. Without giving Calendar time to engage first, Mab pointed at her with her index finger, a needle of fire bright enough to rival a neutron star levitating a few millimeters off its end.
"Pathetic," she mouthed and threw the spell at her enemy, already preparing another one in her mind. With every single thought she called forward from her soul to her hand, she could feel the essence of her being — the only thing that still chained her soul to this body, still standing strong despite the pain — quite literally unmake itself. Every attack she threw, she suddenly realized, would cost her a part of herself — a part of herself she would be unable to regenerate, unless she could somehow reunite with the rest of her being.
Perhaps then — when she would finally become whole — she would see the stupidity of what she was about to do. All of Queen Mab was more cunning than almost anyone in all of history, but this? This was a mere reflection, nothing but a silent echo of that ceaseless greatness. Somewhere deep inside it, intellect older than stars rang out its final symphony, but this here was something much more primal, much more furious than the rest of the Queen. And in the naked lust, that naked hunger for death and destruction that it held as the essence of what it was — it was more than ready to sacrifice everything, just to massacre the worm that had dared raise her hand against her.
If victory cost her her life, so be it.
Without a second's thought, she called forward another white-hot flame, and threw it right at Calendar.
This time, the demon didn't just stand idly. She might have not been the sharpest tool in the box, but she wasn't stupid — and she was definitely nothing if not quick. There was a sudden blur of red before Mab, and the fire meant to take out the assassin thundered right past her, evaporating the pet chimera of some poor sidhe that was unfortunate enough to walk the streets beyond the fight. Calendar grabbed a nearby streetlight and forced it out of the pavement, shattering the cobblestone around it. Wielding it like a club, she threw its end, burning with the essence of a captured pixie, right at Mab's head.
Were it not for the fact that she had already begun to utter words of protection, by now she would be little more than a bashed-in skull.
Meeting with the green-glowing beginnings of Mab's sphere of protection, the lantern simply melted. The energy from the impact quickly heated the whole thing up, forcing Calendar to throw what had remained of her weapon to the ground and reach for something much simpler, safer, and more trustworthy to use in combat.
Her own body.
The part of Mab that was stuck inside the body of Felicity Baudin might have been ancient and powerful beyond words, but the shell around her was still human — and there isn't much the human body can do when faced with two hundred kilograms of demonic muscle, rushing at it at speeds rivaling that of sound.
Calendar's horned head hit Mab square in the chest, throwing her at the pavement five meters behind them.
Desperately gasping for air — a disgustingly human instinct, she realized with an afterthought — Mab's eyes widened. She tried to reach for another spark of Power to mold into energy, but understood, with something that was akin to genuine terror, that that well was almost dry. There was barely anything left at the bottom of her soul.
That thought hit her much more firmly than Calendar's assault. But still not more firmly than the trash can she just landed in, making every neuron in her body light up with agony.
Something behind her cracked — the wall of an apartment, she presumed — and suddenly, there was darkness. Her whole reality was now little more than a putrid grave, entombing her with whatever the hell the citizens of Three Portlands thought was normal waste. She gasped for air again, this time finding none, and rushed upwards with all her might, ready to sacrifice whatever it took to get the hell out of this place.
When she emerged, covered in scraps of mandrake and smelling of discarded alchemy, stars started dancing before her eyes.
In her incomprehensibly long lifetime, Mab had seen more than anyone that had come before or would come after her. She had seen gods rise and fall by her hand. She had seen entire civilizations collapse because of a single word she had uttered, their whole existence literally unmade by as little as a whisper. She had seen stars come and go, their might fading in comparison to the indescribable beauty her true form had held.
There was very little the Fae Queen could consider an experience she'd find novel.
But this here, tonight — this awful sense of genuine dread at someone as lowly as that demon, writhing deep inside her mortal guts — it was the first time she had felt so lost, so utterly and genuinely terrified. Not even when her own Sister had raised her hand against Mab at the height of their Empire's civil war had such a terrible sensation made itself manifest within her mind. It was too much to even think about — it just took over her, forcing her heartbeat to quicken and her mind to go into overdrive. For a millisecond, she just stood there, her body and soul as out of sync as possible, literally frozen by fear.
This could not stand.
She blinked twice, and with discipline as iron as her own first, she made those emotions go away. One did not get to rule for as long as she had without the ability to coldly analyze what transpire around them. She took a quick breath, and with thoughts faster than light came to realize what she needed to do. There was only one correct play, here — a gambit so risky that it gave her almost no chance for victory.
Almost.
Without another choice, with no might of her own to truly support the battle any longer, Mab reached for her deadliest weapon: her words.
"Stop! Stop!" she said with the voice of Felicity Baudin, immediately realizing the mistake of thinking it would carry the same authority as her own. Still, she looked at Calendar, now just a few meters before her, and continued her act all the same. "Who the hell sent you? What do you want from me?"
Another red blur came before Mab's eyes. Little more than centimeters separated their faces. She could see the joyous hunger burning inside Calendar's eyes, now. It wasn't a malicious fire; not at all. What resided within Calendar's mind was little more than pure and genuine excitement, more akin to that of a kid playing with dinosaurs than a serious assassin who genuinely wanted to murder their target in cold blood. It was clear she didn't treat this as an actual challenge — to Calendar, this duel was little more than a fun pastime.
Mab could work with this.
She locked her eyes on that of Calendar, and put on her best pleading face. "I d-don't know what t-they told you," she said, her voice similar to the whimpers of a poor little puppy. "But I've no idea what I did! Please. Just… Just look at me," she gasped out, heavy sighs leaving her body — both an act and an expression of genuine exhaustion at having to force those awful words out of her throat. "Do you really think I'm a bad person? Come on! Please, for god's sake. I'm nothing more than an anartist!" She looked directly into her soul. "You don't have to do this. Please. You don't—"
Calendar's arm suddenly landed on Mab's shoulder, and her face changed to a much different type of grin. "Well," she began, briefly taking her eyes off of Mab for just a second. Deep within them, a spark of amusement appeared. "The wording in my contract does say that there is another way to fulfill—"
It was only a second she didn't look at Mab. But Mab didn't need more than just a second.
With the faltering shriek of a desperate survivor, Mab drove her first forward, uttering words of final, hopeless power.
The wind that emerged from her fingertips threw Calendar two meters backwards — a distance that barely mattered in actual combat, and one that Calendar could cross in little more than the blink of an eye, but a distance that put space between them nonetheless. Space that was more than enough for Mab's plan to have a chance at working.
Feeling her muscles literally fall apart one by one with the pure effort this took, Mab put her second hand up, and started ripping apart the fabric of reality that stood between her and her inevitable end.
She uttered just two words — but those two words, more ancient than most of civilization, carried with them enough thaumic strength to literally tear apart worlds. At the end of her left index finger, a small ball of intense black light appeared. It buzzed with silent energy as it moved up and down, the movement akin to something sentient that already anticipated what Mab would do with it next.
It didn't have to wait long.
With a single precise movement like that of a sword, Mab slashed reality in front of her. Where a street of Three Portlands had been but mere seconds ago was now a rift between worlds; a literal tear in the fabric that separated the realms of baseline reality and that of faerie spirits. The passage came to life with flashes of unbound Fae magic, its colors almost incomprehensible, even to Mab.
For just a second, both Calendar and Mab stood there, stunned by the gateway that had opened before them.
But Mab had the upper hand, here; she was the one that had called forward this portal, not Calendar. As shocked as her mortal body was at seeing the spirit realm of faerie, her immortal mind had already anticipated this reaction. This made her able to use that single moment the two of them stood frozen to her advantage.
Without hesitation, Mab jumped forward, ready to enter the spirit world and close the gateway behind her.
A long time ago, she might have been the single most powerful wielder of magic in the history of the world — but that time was long gone. She knew that here and now, she could not win this fight. It wasn't her world anymore. She knew almost none of it in this moronically limited form, so to win with its spawn — let alone conquer it — was beyond impossible. She needed to retreat to a place she knew by heart, even with this body — and before the rest of her form had been bound beneath the Factory, she had known the faerie spirit world pretty well indeed.
She didn't want to do this, but she needed to be realistic — her pride might have been hurt by admitting defeat and running until she could come back stronger, but at least her spirit wouldn't suffer the same fate. She had no other choice. It was either staying in Three Portlands — with a two-meter demon, ready to bash her skull in any minute — or running away into the spirit realm, a ground she knew to be her own.
She had made her choice.
Suddenly, she felt something that made her heart skip a beat — a hand grabbing her by her leg, its grip as strong as iron. She couldn't even scream. It was already too late, the second Calendar entered right into the portal with her.
The moment that happened, she saw something much worse than the approaching inevitability of being murdered. She saw the fabric of the spell literally change with Calendar's presence inside.
Mab knew this working would be far from perfect, it being cast by this pathetic excuse of a body. But she also expected it to be stable. She had performed so many rites over the years that she did not know if mortals even had a number to describe it. Her mind knew how to perform them more than by heart — to her, magic was an instinct, almost like breathing.
But right now, she failed to account for one part of the equation — the fact that this body would not have that muscle memory. The fact that, for all of its humanity, its skill to engrave runes within reality would not even come close to what she had remembered, let alone expected.
Mab's eyes went wide with terror. There were two of them standing in that opening, now: her and Calendar. And all around them, the rift started to account for two passengers, the additional metaphysical weight of Calendar literally shifting the meaning of the symbols around. In mere moments, the spell no longer resembled what Mab had intended — it changed into something more akin to a crude imitation of a spell that was meant to call each of them home, to the places their souls felt like they belonged in.
Mab tried to scream.
Without being able to do as little as resist the thaumic pull of the spell she herself had cast, she felt it literally rip her body and soul apart, separating both. The force had no mind of its own, she knew that, but with strength that was almost sadistic it took both of these parts and threw them right where they felt like they belonged: the spirit of Mab back into the realm of faerie, the body of Felicity Baudin, right back into the mortal world alongside Calendar, through the still opened rift itself.
Mab tried to protest, tried to do anything, but it was of no use. She could not fight against a force of her own mind — not even when it sealed behind itself the gate between the two realms that Mab had opened just a few moments prior.
If the realm of faerie had walls to pound on, the shard of Mab that found itself within it, now almost insane with rage, would already have broken its fists upon them in frustration.
The Obelisk, Las Vegas, Fourth Ring of Hell
Felicity Baudin opened her eyes, and immediately regretted her decision.
Above the anartist, now finally back to controlling her own body after days of being suppressed by the soul of Mab, stood a gigantic, red-skinned feminine figure. Most of her was covered by the shadows present in the dark room they both lay in, but the little light that the ritual circle around them emitted made her hungry eyes, ridiculous muscle, and horns sticking out of her head more than visible.
Felicity gulped, and the memories of what had just occurred flooded right back at her. She suddenly remembered everything.
"Oh," she mouthed, rapidly standing up herself. "I'm. Uh. Not the one you're looking for, lady."
Calendar shrugged, and came forward into more of the light. Her whole body was now illuminated by the red beneath them, every single drop of sweat and bit of muscle that made her body perfectly visible to Felicity's eyes. She'd be lying if she said she didn't find it kind of hot. "I know," she said, her tone just a bit sad. "But I gotta do what I gotta do."
Felicity let out a tired little sigh. She was far too exhausted — or at the very least, her body was — to really be scared. "Well then. Do your worst. Just make it quick."
She closed her eyes, already anticipating the impact.
It did not come.
Instead, Calendar's heavy arm landed firmly on Felicity's shoulder. Felicity opened her eyes again and met that of Calendar. Both of them were suddenly filled with sparkles of absolute hunger. Both of them suddenly grinned. "You know, I tried to tell this to the other you," Calendar carefully began, "but there's another way to finish the contract. One that—"
Before she could finish the sentence, Felicity pulled her closer.
This was written for RomCon. Big thanks to Rounderhouse for lending me their character. Please check out the other entries into Round 3 here, here, and here!
