Adamant Blood

Without warning the light box shattered.

Spotlights were on, and Mark and Isoko and everyone else were suddenly standing at the bottom of an excavation, maybe seven meters below the surface. Some people were flying in the sky overhead.

Mark instantly recognized one of the fliers in his bright silver fullplate.

The superhero Justicar; the son of High Priest Julia Garin.

Mark didn’t recognize the other guy flying beside Justicar, who was wearing layered robes that fluttered all around him. It was that second guy’s strong voice that filled the night.

“Great job! You killed the demon! Apparently we had some demon still outside the box, too, so whatever you all did to get the demon to leave was the correct choice! As long as it wasn’t a demon contract, of course! Ha ha! We’ll be checking everyone out for demon infections, but I’m pretty sure they’re all gone.” And then the guy’s voice turned softer, more concerned, as he floated down closer, saying, “That was a pretty rough night, wasn’t it. We’ll figure out the whole story soon enough.” The guy set down on the ground and started conjuring blankets, handing them out to people who were slow to take them, but they rapidly sped up. Blankets got wrapped around naked bodies, as the unknown guy said, “Don’t you worry! Wolf Bayou might not be a part of Memphi, but against demons everyone is on the same side.” He handed Mark a blanket.

Mark took the blanket, his voice a weird thing as he said, “Thank you?”

Other people had climbed in the hole to hand out blankets. Inquisitor Jake had created an earthen stairway out of the hole. That had happened pretty fast.

The robed-guy smiled to Mark. “Nice to meet you, Mark.” He nodded to Isoko as he handed her a blanket. “Isoko.” He said to Mark, “Superhero Garin is going to take you and Isoko out of here, so please move along.”

And then Garin was there, floating a little above the ground, saying, “This way.”

Mark and Isoko walked up Inquisitor Jake’s stone staircase, out of the hole, and into a softer sort of interrogation by superhero Justicar himself. It was just a few questions, it was just a few answers. And then Mark and Isoko got some basic browns to wear and an escort into a hover tram, where Lola stood, looking absolutely stricken.

Lola softened when she finally lay eyes on Mark. She sniffled. “Hello, Mark. Getting up to trouble again, then?”

Mark felt some of his rage fall away. “Only some. Do you know about the measures that were taken to protect my parents from Addashield?”

The demon Leash had infected Mark in a way beyond the physical when he had spoken of the failures of Orange City and Church Freyala to protect Markus and Donna Careed from Addashield. Mark had gone back and forth on whether he wanted to actually pursue those questions, though. In the end, he decided to give in to those questions.

He needed to know what he had been blinding himself to for months, now.

Lola looked a bit sad as she said, “I have been waiting for this discussion for a while. May we adjourn back to Memphi to have some coffee and speak in a nicer setting?”

Mark felt some odd kinda way. Trepidation? Worry? He didn’t know. He was about to say ‘yes’—

Redwolf spoke up from the side, “I would have a moment before you leave.” Without waiting for agreement, she said to Mark, “You pulled some extra adamantium from a kaiju blade we kept in storage below the Grand Hotel. You can either keep it and come back for a big discussion later, or give it back now.”

“… Oh! Uh.” Mark stood straight. “Of course. It slipped my mind.”

Isoko didn’t have her mithril kaiju blade anymore, but Whitewolf, who stood behind Redwolf, had his grip on the sword. The sword was 3 meters long, so most of it lay on the ground.

… Mark partitioned out his adamantium… and he found he really, really didn’t want to get rid of any of it, and not just because he wasn’t sure what was his versus not-his. His total amount of adamantium had been 7 little balls of adamantium, along with some adamantium dust sitting in the vault of Citadel. What he had here, currently in his astral body, was over double what he had had at the start of the night. It was so nice to have more adamantium to work with.

Mark almost considered keeping it, since that was one of the offers, and making a promise to come back here later. But he didn’t want that.

He was not a thief.

Mark looked at the kaiju blade in Whitewolf’s grip, at the length of it laying on the ground. “How much adamantium is in an… uh, kaiju blade?”

“45 million goldleaf worth of adamantium. Now it’s 28 million goldleaf thanks to your brother, but more and more people are using it for more applications, so the price is going back up, and fast. I need that 780 grams of adamantium, Mark.”

Blackwolf, who was standing near Redwolf and who had probably teleported both of them to this space right here, brought forth a scale.

“780 grams! Okay!” Mark took the scale and set it on a nearby table, and he dropped off some adamantium, drop by drop. It felt terrible to rid himself of any of his weapons, but… He wasn’t about to become a thief. “780 grams is normal for a kaiju blade?”

“Yes,” Redwolf said. “Standard size.”

Mark dropped off more adamantium until it measured 780 grams. And then he stepped away, feeling lesser. Fuck. That was a lot of weapon he was leaving on the table… But he wasn’t a thief. He looked at the blade in Whitewolf’s hands, and asked Redwolf, “I can draw it into a blade edge? Save your people some manufacturing costs… I think?”

Redwolf said, “Unnecessary and unwanted. I don’t trust new metal mages to make a kaiju blade at all. Please give me thin rods each 10 centimeters long, equaling roughly 2.5 meters of length. More rods are better than fewer.”

“Understandable! So lengths of metal, sure!” Mark pulled the pile of adamantium pieces into rods, rapidly making a pile of a hundred long toothpicks on the scale, and then he stepped away. “780 grams!”

Redwolf took a big brown paper grocery bag from Blackwolf and handed it to Mark, saying, “The blackened tuna steaks you requested for the party. Half cooked, half raw to cook on your own, and a few other foods, but mostly the tuna steaks. Also, the information we found out about those four people you were looking for, but I assume you have learned enough based on what the demon told you. Come by anytime you want, Mark, and we can discuss what we left out of the report about Thrashtalon and the demon Leash.”

Mark held the big bag and it felt weightier than it was. “Thank you. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Redwolf said, “Come back sometime for the coliseum matches. Most of them are just to first dismemberment. It’s a lot more real than the fights most Hero Villain Program gets up to. It's a lot more useful to learn how to fight that way.”

Redwolf walked away into the shadows of Blackwolf, and then she was gone. Whitewolf went elsewhere, picking up the sword to walk with it to the rescue area, where people were being interrogated and picked through for infections.

Mark got into the hovertram with Inquisitor Lola. He startled when he saw that Inquisitor David was in the front seat, driving the thing—

Isoko spoke from outside the door to the tram, saying, “See you later, Mark.”

Mark almost asked what was wrong. Why was Isoko staying out of the vehicle? But then he realized that he wanted to talk to Lola about… everything. Isoko saw that much, too. And yet…

Mark said, “We can go back to base before we start talking, and some of this food is for you. Please come, Isoko.”

Inquisitor Lola nodded a little.

David spoke up, “Come sit up here in the navigator seat. I’ll let you drive to Memphi.”

Isoko grinned, and then she got up into the vehicle, into the navigator seat. The doors closed and soon they were up, into the air, headed back south to Memphi.

There wasn’t much to say right now, so Mark listened to David tell Isoko how to drive the hover car.

Mark gazed out the window as they flew away from Wolf Bayou. The city looked intact, but there were way too many lights everywhere, and emergency vehicles had landed on every nearby street and a few different roofs. White tents populated the town square over there. People were casting spells into the dark, square hole in the ground that had held the Light Box, illuminating the depths of that hole, like it was a quarry, lit up for a rugby game.

The hole in the ground was immense. It was like someone had taken a square punch out of Wolf Bayou. Liquid poured out of sewer or water lines into that square hole in the ground, while lights shone on the deepening water—

Mark gasped as he looked north, to a kaiju, waiting to pounce on the ci—

To the body of the kaiju that Redwolf had killed yesterday. Mark had briefly mistaken it for a living monster, or maybe a mountain range. But it was dead. Very dead. And they were flying away from it right now. Soon, the tram pointed away from the kaiju, and all Mark could see was the dark of the land beyond Wolf Bayou. The Mississippi River, and the trampled, broken land that had been the northwestern patrol area of Memphi.

The kaiju dominated the north beyond Wolf Bayou like few things Mark had ever seen before.

“Holy shit,” Mark whispered, as he sat down all the way in his seat. “I had forgotten about the kaiju.”

“Life comes at you fast,” Lola said, “Too fast, sometimes. You can start to forget about the events that you wish to deal with as other, newer events demand all of your focus.”

Mark stared out the window. And then he looked at his big box of food from Redwolf. He put a hand on the top of the brown bag, and felt warmth. “I think it’s still hot. Want some food?”

Isoko called out, “Yes I do!”

Lola smiled a little. “I wouldn’t be opposed.”

Mark found the cold box of raw tuna in a white foam container at the bottom of the bag, but all the other stuff was hot food in wax paper containers. There were hot sandwiches, cut meats of beef or pork slathered in barbecue sauce, some salads with all the fixings, and, of course, the big tuna steaks, blackened. The steaks glowed pink and they smelled like heat. They were going to be spicy. Mark handed out most everything, but Lola didn’t want much and David just had a small sandwich, while Isoko had a much bigger portion of food.

Mark stuck a fork into one of the tuna steaks and found the meat glowing pink on the inside. It reminded Mark of the glowing demon ‘meat’ in the Light Box, but of a much nicer pink, instead of that demonic red. He grinned and then he bit into it. It was delicious.

Eventually, they made it to Collective Temple, to the rooms and suites that Lola and the delegation from Citadel Freyala were using while they were here.

Eventually, they talked of Mark’s parents, and of the inadequacies and impossibilities of protecting them from Addashield.

- - - -

Mark lay in bed in a side room in Collective Temple, thinking about the conversation he had had with Lola.

The demon Leash had taunted Mark about the lax defense of his parents, when he was on that Color Drop treatment. Leash had mentioned the inadequacies of Holy Mother Garin and Orange City’s ‘Detective John Smith’.

Maybe they could have done more.

Maybe not.

Mom and Dad had been put into a bunker about 250 miles north of Orange City. It was an unmarked location, but it was a known safehouse in the historical records of Orange City. A new safehouse should have been dug for Mark’s parents, because, while Archmage Addashield might not have known where they were keeping Markus and Donna Careed, Kanda would have known because she was a demon who just collected memories and knowledge. Kanda would have been able to tell Addashield exactly where to search, and how to go through every single option, going through safehouse after safehouse to find Mark’s parents.

Which is exactly what Addashield had done, because Addashield knew Orange City. He had been there at the founding of the city, after the Reveal. Kanda knew what they needed to do, and so Addashield had done that.

Addashield’s search had resulted in 28 more bodies added to his list of murders, including Markus and Donna Careed. It had only been 12 hours from the start of Addashield’s hunt to the end of that hunt, and in that time, Orange City did nothing to stop the hunt, because Orange City was still being threatened. If they acted against Addashield directly, then those people who acted against him would be killed.

They had ‘cut their losses’ and Mark’s parents had paid the price.

Mark had no idea how he felt about that—

An unfamiliar ringing and chirping sounded out from the side.

Mark turned.

Oh. It was his new phone making that noise.

He picked up the phone. It was Alexandro, and the time was 8:27 AM.

He answered, “Hello?”

“Mark! I heard a lot of stuff went down! You’re coming back home, right?”

“… Uh.” Mark wasn’t prepared to have this conversation, but he had it anyway. “I was targeted by a demon and also Thrashtalon for some reason. Still don’t know what that was about. Some dragon claims to be my brother. I think I should stay away—”

“No,” Alexandro said, solidly. “Just no. You should come home, because this is your home.” Without waiting for an answer, and sounding a bit mad, Alexandro continued, “If it makes you feel safer then you can live in the guest house, Mark. You and Isoko and whoever you want! We still want you here! And next time you go gallivanting off to kill a monster wave and a kaiju and then a demon of Thrashtalon you should either meet me at the office for a hug and a ‘till-next-time!’ or wait half an hour before you leave the house. My gods, Mark! I was almost back home from the workday! Who the fuck leaves to go out to the wilds at 4 pm!” Alexandro chuckled some, perhaps nervously, perhaps in light of the situation, perhaps in the relief of being able to talk about small, no less important topics such as leaving before being able to say ‘till-next-time’. “Cut me some slack, please!”

Mark found himself smiling. “Sorry.”

“Ach! No need. I know kids are always eager, or whatever…” The anger evaporated and Alexandro sounded relieved as he said, “I was so worried, but then so proud! You should see the news! They’re saying you killed the demon’s host yourself!”

Mark chuckled a little, feeling a difficult tension unwind, which was instantly wound back up by a different, easier tension. He wasn’t a hero. Not yet.

“I didn’t kill that thing myself at all!”

“Well of course the news is going to exaggerate. They want to make the people feel safe, and a story about one guy being instrumental to killing a demon is always going to be a white lie. You can tell me how it really happened, though.”

Mark smiled, and said, “Well first of all, something called the Containment Crew was called in because, and I quote —and from one of the paladins I met in the Light Box!— ‘They were complaining about not having anything to do’.”

“Oh yeah. Just asking for trouble!”

Mark grinned. “Exactly. So the Containment Crew Light Box’ed a whole 1.75 city blocks, using a combination of sealing magic, mud magic, light magic, and some guy who was good at color matching, who could somehow see what things were real demons and what were not— Oh. Well actually, it started before that. You know those people I was trying to find? Well…” Mark paused. His voice turned a bit more serious, as he said, “I need to know if I fucked up, Uncle. Those people I was trying to find…”

Mark told Uncle Alexandro what he knew, and what had been discovered, and what the demon had said.

Mary Getty and her family had been exiled from Memphi for human trafficking about 10 years ago. It was a whole thing involving drugs and gangs and heavy violence, but Mary had found a second home in the Cult of Thrashtalon outside of the city. Greenwolf’s investigation turned up a whole new branch of the Cult that no one had known about. Those people were all actively being hunted down right now. Apparently, when Mary went after Mark because their wealth scanners went wild, and then when Mark had gotten away, she had kicked the hornet’s nest of Memphi, and everything kinda fell apart from there.

All of Mary’s entire family had been Thrashtalon Cultists.

There was a lot the investigation did not tell Mark, that he and Lola knew had been redacted, but…

That was most of the story.

Alexandro listened, and then he decisively said, “Look. This is probably gonna mark me as a villain, but those fuckers got what they deserved. Cultists of Thrashtalon? Death is what they deserve.”

“They were still people!” Mark said, “I can’t believe people would… would go to Thrashtalon like that.”

“I would.”

Mark hummed, and then he said, “I don’t know much about Thrashtalon, honestly. Only that he is the Betrayer God. Everyone has orders to kill those cultists on sight. Why do people go to him at all?”

“Thrashtalon’s Power, before he became a god, was Wilding. He mutated people’s Powers to stronger versions of themselves. He’s the betrayer god because he betrays everyone, including his own cultists. They turn into monsters, Mark. The ‘wilds’ are called the ‘wilds’ because of the Power Wilding. He’s the god of rejects, monsters, and betrayers. That’s why I have no respect for humans who go to him. That’s why those people are kill-on-sight.”

Mark breathed deep. “I knew… vaguely, some of that.” Mark admitted, “Learning about the gods outside of Freyala is the last part of the Understanding Curtain Protocol class at Citadel. Never got to finish that.”

“You can always tell his true cultists because of the handprint on their faces. He burns them when he changes them. Did Mary have a handprint?”

“… She did. Mary Getty was Contracted to a demon, too. Do you know why someone would choose to do both? No one here had any real ideas, but you’re more in tune with the higher powers, right?” Mark added, “And they redacted some stuff in the report I got to see.”

“I hear things now and then…” Alexandro hummed. “I could only guess… No. I have no guesses.” He asked, “You coming home, then? I want to hear all about everything, in person, Mark!”

Mark smiled a little, feeling warm again. “Yeah. I’ll… move into the guest house.”

“You can still have dinner over here every night!

Mark smiled some more. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Until you do that expedition thing to Daihoon. The Sister City to Memphi. You’re still doing that, right?”

“There have been some bumps in the road, but I’m still doing that, for sure.”

~ ~ ~ ~

End Book 1

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