Sheena led the way through the caves, tracking the Ancients’ path easily over the dirt and loose stone. Sharur followed her insubstantially, with Gayle and Bryan close behind.
“Only two guards at the cave entrance?” Bryan shook his head. “What are they thinking?”
“Oh, the Ancients do things in very weird ways,” Gayle answered cheerfully. “Sometimes, they even forget they can use magic on you and just leap at you with those knives they all carry.”
“No wonder they never showed up as a decent ally or threat to my old network.”
“The case files suggest that sometimes the host bodies continue to fight against possession, and that this might explain some of their irrational actions,” Sheena added quietly as she paused to study a branch in the tunnels. She chose the left path and moved on. She had changed out of her agency suit and into her hero costume for the spelunking.
“But, no one has ever come back after being possessed,” Gayle offered. “Right?”
“Mostly, no. A few very special cases…. Hang on, I hear people ahead. Lights, too.” She crept forward while the others fell silent and waited. Bryan dimmed the witchlight above his head until it was a mere shimmer in the darkness. Gayle reached out and squeezed his hand.
The caves beneath the city park ran deeper than the local geology would ordinarily support. Many of the chambers and passages had been artificially widened and smoothed by villainous groups over the decades since Venture City’s founding. The room that Sheena approached was barely large enough for a good fight. A diffuse yellowish light illuminated it evenly. Four gray-robed Ancients stood shoulder to shoulder with long brass knives unsheathed, blocking the narrow entry to the larger cavern beyond. Despite the different human bodies they wore, each one’s eyes blazed with green flames, marking them all as demon-possessed.
[i]They have trapped the tunnel,[/i] Sharur whispered to Sheena’s mind.
[i]I see it, she nodded. I can disarm it, I think.[/i]
[i]They will sense me if I get any closer.[/i]
[i]Okay, we need Bryan to counter their spells. Go pass the word and explain what is here.[/i]
[i]Understood, Mistress.[/i] The demon wolf removed himself and retreated to where Gayle and Bryan waited to fill them in on the situation.
Sheena carefully undid the trip wire under the concealment of her stalking ability. She produced a small time current to remove the magic trap the Ancients had laid beneath the wire. The guards in the room beyond kept a careful watch on the tunnel where she was hiding, occasionally making remarks to each other, but failed to spot her.
“Bottle ‘em up, Gayle,” Sheena whispered into her throat mic. She raised her hand and flooded the chamber in front of her with a field of slowed time to start the fight.
The air across the exit that the Ancients guarded shimmered as Gayle turned it into a soundproof wall of wind. Her phantom army rushed forward to batter the guards with punches and blasts of air. Bryan hung back in the shadows and cast a counter-charm that would turn the Ancients’ spells back against them.
The Ancients began to react, but so slowly that it was almost like they were standing still. Sheena drew her bow and fired spirit arrows, one after another. The phantom army was knocking the villains about, but it wasn’t difficult for an archer of Sheena’s skill to hit them. Each arrow burst with a flash of golden light as it hit a possessed target. Gayle scooped up each of the reeling foes in turn, keeping them mostly harmless as they spun and tumbled in personal whirlwinds.
“Sheena! Hit them again! You’re breaking the possession!” Bryan called out with excitement.
“Really? Awesome!” Sheena aimed and fired again. The ghastly, skeletal form of a horned demon separated from the body of the woman she had shot and floated in midair. It was as insubstantial as Sharur had been; not fully in synch with reality, but subject to magical or psychic attack. Sheena shot the disoriented demon with yet another spirit arrow. It dissolved with a terrible shriek. “Oh, yeah, this will work!”
“Bryan, if I let the un-possessed people out of the whirlwinds, can you heal them?” Gayle asked.
“I can give it a shot.”
“Go ahead and try. I’ll hold the wind wall up. They won’t have heard anything in the next cave, but the light show may have given us away.”
Sheena finished battering the demons loose from their host bodies. She asked, “Sharur, can you see what’s happening in the chamber beyond us?”
“No, Mistress. It is warded and I do not know the key.”
“Okay, I’ll take a look.” She gathered her thoughts and started stalking again, thinking of the Ancients as her prey. As she did so, she disappeared. Creeping up close to Gayle’s wall of wind, she could see the larger cavern beyond. It, too, was lit with a diffuse yellowish light, but there were also ritual torches sputtering a greenish flame at irregular intervals. Several columns of stone extended from floor to ceiling. She could see two other exits at the far side of the roughly oval chamber. Several gray-clad minions and one mage in shabby red robes were clustered around a large stone slab or altar at the far end of the chamber. Sheena could also see the fortune teller, Lady Rose, fastened to the stone, still in the gypsy-style costume she had been wearing when she was kidnapped.
Bryan shook his head and looked up from the possession victim he had been working on. “No, I can’t heal this, but maybe you can, Sheena. They need to be turned back to who they were before the demons possessed them.”
“Okay, I’ll give it a try.” Sheena turned from the edge of the chamber just as a bolt of green fire lanced toward her. It struck the rock she had been crouching beside. She felt the heat of it and ducked away. “Ouch! They’ve noticed us!”
“All right, the counter-charm is still up,” Bryan said. He pressed himself against the stone out of sight of the larger cavern. “Healing will have to wait until we deal with the Ancients.”
“Right. Active threats, first.”
“Lightning storm time!” called Gayle. She made sure that each of them was protected by her air shields and then bobbed up to where she could see the cavern beyond. She concentrated and formed a rumbling thunder cloud in the center of the cavern. More fire bolts flashed through the narrow passage into their room. Weakened by their passage through the wind wall, they splashed harmlessly against Gayle’s shield.
“We’d better get these people out of the way,” Sheena said. “They’re going to get hit by the fire if we leave them here.”
“Got it,” replied the singer. She had her phantom army protect and move the unconscious possession victims away from the fight.
Sheena slipped out in front of Gayle and into the doorway. She ducked a firebolt and spread another field of slowed time between the storm cloud and the cavern entrance. Sheena got a good look at what they were facing. “It’s not just the ritual team, with the mage and some guards! There are demons lobbing these firebolts! Four of them, and close!”
A well-targeted firebolt hit her squarely in the upper chest, and bounced, reflected back at the spectral demon who threw it. The surprised demon shrieked in pain as its own magical fire burned away part of its essence. Sheena ducked back behind cover.
“There’s the counter-charm. I’ll see if I can get the ward down,” Bryan offered. “Then, at least Sharur can help.”
“Great. Do it.”
“Tornado versus incorporeal demons! Who will win?” called Gayle. Her windstorm started whirling and scouring the cavern. Lightning bolts from the thunder cloud periodically struck the demons, doing some small damage and knocking them about further.
“The demons,” Sheena snorted. “Air is doing nothing to them.” She ducked out and loosed a spirit arrow through the wind wall. It flew cleanly and struck the nearest demon in the head. The creature wobbled, screeched, and dissolved. She ducked back. “Case in point, the wind’s not touching my arrows, either.”
“Aw! Well, do we hole up here, or take the fight to them?”
“To them, but you’ve gotta move that storm further in. And protect Rose.”
“Gotcha. Adjusting back about ten meters.” Gayle shifted the tornado. “Phantom army going in. Wall dropping… now!”
Sheena waited and the howl of the wind and crash of the lightning burst through the cave entry. Adjusting to the noise, she ducked out, found the nearest demon, and shot it with a spirit arrow. Adding to the battle, she summoned her wolves and set them on the demons. With an excited howl, her spirit animals rushed to attack.
“Okay, the ward doesn’t stop the pets. Just Sharur. Good to know,” Sheena informed the others as she ducked back out of the way of more firebolts.
The demons were now paying most attention to Gayle’s aerial constructs and the wolves. Still battered by the lightning strikes, the volume of firebolts hitting the smaller cave entrance had dropped considerably. “Good time to move,” Gayle offered.
“Right. Let’s go.” Sheena darted through the passage and into the right side of the cavern beyond, shooting another demon as she went. Already wounded, this one, too, shrieked and dissolved.
Gayle’s phantom army did very little to the demons, but the gray-robed Ancient minions were easy targets for them. The kidnapping mage had given up on his ritual in frustration, and turned to join in the battle with his spells. Through it all, Lady Rose remained disturbingly calm.
“I’ve almost got the ward, I think,” Bryan told Gayle as she flew past him into the cavern.
“Good! Oh, wow! You might want to see this, though,” she replied as she watched a circle open in the air behind the altar at the far end of the cavern. “I think they’ve opened a portal!”
Bryan shrugged and continued to chant under his breath as he leaned around the wall to take a look. A pale figure in ornate orange robes and head coverings stood on the other side of the portal. The skin he could see on his face and hands was a dead, waxy white color. This would have to be the master wizard Sheena had warned them about. Beside the wizard he spotted a familiar shape; a slender, black-haired elf with a fanged white mask—the Adder. Bryan cursed mentally and kept working on dismantling the ward.
Sheena spotted the opening portal as it first peeked its way through the boundary of reality. She had just summoned her leopard spirits and set them on the kidnapper. With a snarl of frustration, the mage drew his knife. It glistened with something shiny and red on the blade. The mage turned from the leopards for a moment and raised the knife in the air above the fortune teller.
“No you don’t!” Sheena whispered. She drew a current of time out of the River and quickly looped it about Lady Rose. With a flick of her wrist, she flipped part of the current back on itself, stopping the flow of time around the woman on the altar. The mage’s knife came down and slipped off the impenetrable shell of time around his victim. Then, the leopards had him and dragged him to the floor with teeth and claws.
The masked elf beside the master wizard pointed at Sheena. She could hear him say quietly, “Yes, that’s her. The bait worked. Kill her.”
“Very well. Now [i]you[/i] owe [i]me[/i],” the Ancient wizard replied, seemingly unconcerned at the havoc the heroes were wreaking against his underlings. A cloud of translucent bones whirled around him as he stepped through the portal into the cavern.
The wizard raised his arms and a squad of demons—twice the size, fiercer, and more terrifying than the last bunch—burst forth from dark clouds of smoke.
“Okay, new target,” Gayle called out. “Master baddy and his pets!” She shifted the focus of the thunder cloud and the tornado. The phantom army moved to intercept the demons.
“Got the ward down!” gasped Bryan. “Sharur? Can you get in?”
“Yes, I can. My thanks,” the iron wolf rumbled. Then, he leaped into the cavern and howled a challenge to the demons. They oriented on him as the last of the weaker fire-throwing demons fell to the trio of Sheena’s spirit wolves.
The wizard wasn’t wasting any time on idle threats or monologuing. He gathered the energy for a spell. A wreath of smoky darkness enveloped his waxy white hands and he flung the spell at Sheena.
Sheena tried to dodge aside, but the coil of black smoke followed her movements and wrapped itself around her like a snake. She fell to the cavern floor as the spell twisted and wound itself tightly about her. It began to squeeze even tighter. She couldn’t even call out for help. Panic rose in her throat.
With a glare, Gayle darted higher in the air and punched a hand forward. With a finger-curling gesture, she ripped the air out of the wizard’s body. The orange-robed figure glanced at her and made a swatting gesture. The singer was knocked away and tumbled for a moment, regaining her balance, but her air shields held. “Okay, I guess he doesn’t need air. But Sheena does! Bryan, help Sheena!”
The wizard was casting another spell at the downed goddess. Bryan nodded, flicked his fingers, and muttered a request to Raven. A black skull streaked from the wizard’s hand toward Sheena’s heart, but at the last moment the snake spell twining about Sheena shifted and the skull struck it, instead. The constricting black vapor burst like a soap bubble. Sheena gasped for breath and struggled to get up. Panic drove her to her hands and knees where she wobbled unsteadily, her wings flopping to either side of her. She coughed and tried to steady herself as her head began to clear.
Sharur was already tearing through demons like an iron freight train; easily shrugging off their blows and spells. This was what the old gods had created him to do. Gayle concentrated her wind blasts on the wizard. There were fewer whirling bones to interpose themselves between her blasts and the wizard, but this seemed too slow, even with the lightning bolts from the thunder cloud helping.
A demon tried to disengage from the swirl of melee about Sharur, but the leopards savaged it before it could get close to Sheena. She gulped a breath of air and scrambled to her feet. Her wings flapped to steady her on the uneven floor of the cavern as she called her bow back into her hand. The demon pushed a step further toward her and clawed through the gray leopard’s body with sharp, bony digits. With a yowl of pain, Misty dissolved. Sheena gritted her teeth and shot the demon with a spirit arrow, and then another. It struggled on, just a step out of reach. A third arrow finally destroyed it as it swung at her, inches from her chest. She heaved a sigh of relief, took a deep breath, and tried to refocus on the bigger battle.
The wizard studied the cavern ceiling carefully and nodded while Gayle pummeled his defenses. Full of apprehension, Bryan countered the next spell the Ancient cast. The wizard’s spell spiraled wildly out of control and fizzled into the floor. After a sharp glance at Sheena and Gayle, the wizard narrowed his eyes and looked suspiciously into the shadows where Bryan was hiding.
“I’ve got the demons! Gayle, keep up the pressure on that guy!” Sheena called. She shuffled back to the nearest stone pillar for cover and pumped another spirit arrow into a demon.
“You got it, Sheena!” The wind controller narrowed her tornado and swept up loose grit and rock in a swirling storm about the wizard, adding more of her own air blasts as rapidly as she could fire them off. Sheena continued to shoot the most wounded demons. Shortly, there were only two left.
The iron wolf breathed a blast of fire, catching both demons in the inferno. With the last bite from one of the spirit wolves the demons were gone. Sheena drew forth a time current and tried to loop it about the wizard. He paused in gathering more dark energy and made a countering gesture. The time current slipped out of Sheena’s control and dissipated.
Bryan slipped to the other side of the stone column where he could see Sheena and cast a distraction spell to protect her. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he edged around to the cavern wall and moved to a new spot where he could see Gayle. He took a deep breath and prepared another counter-charm.
Gayle and her wind powers were working away at the wizard’s defenses. Few of the protective bones were left in his shield. He singer guessed that he would either refresh the shield or withdraw soon. She concentrated and pumped up the static electricity in the air to create a massive lightning bolt. While she charged up, she called out to Sheena, “Take down his shield! Overwhelm it before he can get away!”
Sheena nodded and grabbed for a real, razor-edged war arrow. She loosed it at the wizard. Sharur also advanced on the wizard and snapped at him with his iron teeth. More bones interposed themselves, took the damage, and crumbled away. Sensing some progress, Sheena continued firing arrows.
With a grim cast to his face, the Ancient wizard raised his arms and began summoning another group of demons. Bryan grinned and slipped a trickster’s twist into the wizard’s spell, then ducked back out of the way.
Gayle unleashed a fully charged lightning bolt from the end of her outstretched fist. With an eye-blinding flash, it connected with the wizard, destroyed the rest of his bone armor, and bounced back at the singer. Gayle made an “Eeep!” noise as she was knocked back across the cavern and out of the air.
The Ancient hastily completed his summoning. Five more demons rose up from the smoky blackness, and then turned toward him. With a startled expression, the wizard called out, “Wait! I command you!” Then, Sheena saw him attempt to cast another spell. She didn’t learn what it was intended to do, because he disappeared under the circle of hostile demons.
“Uncontrolled demons love the opportunity to devour their summoners!” Bryan remarked with a chuckle. He began working up a banishment spell, just in case, but thought he would let them finish off the wizard, first.
“I’m okay!” Gayle called out weakly from the back of the cavern. She bobbed back into the air and dusted herself off as Sharur and Sheena destroyed the rest of the demons. “Wait… did we just win?”
“Yeah, I think we did,” Sheena answered.