Scourge Sixty-Four - Confession

“Esme!” I shout.

“Oh? Did I kill your fri--” the jerk-face soon-to-be-dead necromancer starts.

He stalls as Felix rips the air out of his mouth and his eyes bulge. Then he dodges back as Bianca sends a wall of roiling fire straight at him.

His abomination jumps between him and the fire, shielding him from the worst of it before he brings some water around and splashes the flames out.

“Esme!” I scream again as I dart across the floor. Bianca’s over her already, hands pressing down against the bloody wound in her back. She sees me coming, then jumps up and places herself between Esme and the necromancer.

I hear a scream, and recognize Felix. She’s flailing her arms around, sending sharp gusts of wind across the room but... but they’re weak.

Of course. She’s angry, afraid, sad, everything but happy. And that means her magic is going to be so, so much weaker. Her windy blades are barely able to push aside the necromancer’s swirling shield of water.

I drop to my knees next to Esme and reach down for her. “Esme,” I say.

“I’m not dead,” she groans.

“Esme!”

“Hi,” she replies. “I might be dying though, so please put pressure on that.”

I fumble around, find a kerchief, then press it down onto the cut on Esme’s back. It’s deep and long, from between her shoulder and neck on the right all the way down to her left hip. Her clothes might have taken some of the blow’s strength away, but they’re cut just as badly and are now entirely stained red. We’re going to need to buy new clothes for her. That’ll be fun.

I shake my head. It’s far, far from the time to be having that kind of thought. I push down on Esme’s bleeding back and feel her essense gushing out between my fingers. “Esme, what do I do?” I ask.

“Well, first, take care of the necromancer please.”

“Esme!” I say. “You’re bleeding, that’s more important.”

“And he might... attack you. And I can do healing magic, maybe,” she says.

I press down harder, trying to keep everything in. Why do I have dark magic? Why not something actually useful?

“I just need... to focus, and be afraid,” Esme says. She giggles a little. “That’s strange, you know? It should be easier to be afraid right now.”

I’m about to respond when the necromancer’s abomination roars and starts to stomp forwards. My monsters, finally across the room, put that on pause as they ram into the abomination and bring it down with a flurry of teeth and claws.

Monsters!

I summon my little friends and set them across Esme’s back with one hand. “Hold her cut closed,” I order. “Esme, this will hurt.”

“It’s hurting pretty bad already,” she whines.

“I know, I’m sorry,” I say.

Why can’t I help more?

“Is that all you can do?” the necromancer shouts. A quick-moving wave of water batters my monsters off his abomination. “I am Getorix! First servant of Altum! My god will reward me richly once I turn this decrepit world into a grave fit for my lord and king! You feeble-minded idiots will never be able to stop me.”

I need to put this idiot down. He’s still strong, still able to hurt my other friends. “Esme,” I say.

She swallows. “I’ve almost got it,” she says. “I just... I just need a little more fear, a bit more sadness, and a bit more focus, and I’ll have it.”

A spell? Water magic, fear magic, can do healing, though it’s not great. Sadness is much better at it. To combine the two... grief and fear... she’d need something bitter sweet.

I can give her that.

I lean down, bring my face very close to hers, and then turn her a little bit so that she’s on her side. She winces, and so do I. Still, we’re face to face now. Fear and sadness, bittersweet.

“Esme,” I say. “I love you.”

There’s a static shock that travels up my arm and Esme’s eyes go wide.

Then I kiss her.

It’s not a good kiss, I don’t think. The angles are all wrong and there’s just no time and... well, I don’t know what I’m doing, but I do my best anyway. “I can’t stay,” I say as soon as it ends. My head is swimming. “I need to fight. Please, please don’t die.”

There. If that’s not bittersweet, then I’ve just wasted my first kiss.

I ran up next to Felix, who was staring at me very intently. “Did you just kiss Esme?” she asks.

I flush, which is strange because I’m already feeling pretty flush. “Yes,” I say. “Why, you want one too?”

Felix grins from ear to ear. “I wouldn’t say no.”

“Luna! Less flirting, more fighting please, this guy’s actually pretty tough,” Lily shouts. She stomps a foot down and the entire building shakes and shivers, then earthen spikes rip out of the floor beneath the necromancer.

He jumps up and stands atop a swirling mass of water, unharmed. Unharmed, but distracted enough that he almost eats Lily’s follow-up fireball.

Felix laughs and the room fills with a spinning torrent of wind that chips away at the water the necromancer’s controlling. His abomination tries to stand, but the wind keeps pushing it back down so it has no leverage.

I cast my dark tentacles forward and they spear out towards the necromancer. He dismisses them with a wave of his hand, but his water isn’t strong enough to move them and instead they start breaking apart the liquid with a powerful hiss.

“I don’t know who you are,” I say.

That has his chest puffing out. “I am Getorix, first--”

“I don’t care,” I snap. “You’re just the jerk who hurt my Esme! No one hurts my friends! You disgusting, brainless donkey.”

“Yeah!” Felix cheers. She has her forming tornado tighten around Getorix, and I can see the moment his haughtiness starts to turn to panic. I think it’s about the moment where Lily and Bianca, working in tandem, add fire to the tornado so that it’s a burning, spinning vortex with him in its middle.

The earthen spikes continue to climb, and now the ceiling above is very much on fire and falling apart.

My tentacles finally reach him, and one of them wraps around his calf.

He screams, and in that moment his fear empowers his magic. There’s a huge burst and all of the water wrapping around him as a barrier explodes outwards with enough strength that the flaming vortex is ripped apart and everyone is tossed off their feet by the expanding wave.

I scramble to stand, dress soaked through and hair now plastered across my face.

Getorix is standing as well, an ugly look on his face as he looks at his leg. The tentacle didn’t touch him for long, but it still ate through his pants and his skin beneath. I can see muscles moving, and raw flesh. I can’t imagine that feels good.

“To think that there are still fools who don’t know better than to stand before Altum’s chosen and defy the lord’s will!” he says. “I will rend your flesh and turn you into an abomin--” He squawks as the floor beneath him suddenly turns up forty-five degrees and he’s pitched forwards.

“Shut up, you,” Lily says. “I’ve heard enough sermons to last me a lifetime, I don’t need more from the likes of you.”

Getorix raises a hand towards Lily and a wall of water rushes at her.

Then Bianca, who is a far worse mess than I am in her thicker skirts and dress, punches towards the wall and it breaks in the middle.

Lily sneers and lashes out with a hand, sending a tiny fireball forwards so fast I can hardly follow its trajectory before it ends by slapping Getorix across the face.

He screams.

Then his scream is cut short when Felix robs him of his breath and he’s left clawing at his throat.

He doesn’t look so intimidating now. With a disgusted spit to the side, I summon a dozen dark bolts and fire them at the necromancer. He’s too busy with Felix’s magic to notice or react before the bolts stab into his arms, legs and chest.

“Anyone feel like looting him?” I ask.

No one says anything, so I have my tentacles start eating away at him, just to make sure.

Felix splashes across the room in a hurry, and I spin around. “Esme! Don’t drown Esme, I need to kiss you too,” she says.

I dismiss my tentacles and run over as well. Esme was pushed back against one of the far walls. She’s sitting against it and coughing lightly. I think she might have swallowed some water. “Esme! Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she says. “It was just a flesh wound. Might need to eat some meat to make up for the blood loss because... wow, that was a lot of blood. I even hallucinated that you confessed to me.” She giggles. “How wild is that?”

***