Vol.3 Ch.42.5 – Epilogue – All Roads Lead To Buffalo + Announcement
Epilogue: All Roads Lead To Buffalo
“Buffalo,” Subject 259 said between bites of food.
Rachel was slightly baffled as she beheld the little sprite gorging herself while gleefully giving up every secret of IDS she could. During this short conversation Rachel had been able to gather more intel on IDS and Caulder than even Stollos had had before.
In just a few short sentences the girl had confirmed the suspicions they'd had about IDS trying to breed more powerful Outsider hybrids. Project Seedbed it was called. Then there was Project Harvest, a group of strike teams that invaded Heaven and Hell to abduct Celestials for experiments like the Red Rider, which helped explain the concerning number of disappearances both realms had suffered over the last few months, people who had just vanished but had not been killed in the endless war with the Outsiders. And finally there was Project Gospel, an effort to raise cells of Outsider cultists all over America and to network between them. Apparently this project had started long before the Invasion. With great reluctance Subject 259 had admitted that she had been the one to liaise with several of these cell leaders, like the one back in Albion. As if anyone was going to hold her responsible for the things Caulder had forced her to do.
But that thought made Rachel consider something else. Subject 259. It was a designation, not a name. Shortening it to 259, the way the girl herself did, was the simplest solution but they really needed to get the girl a proper name. Rachel found herself thinking of her as 'Subby' more than once but that certainly wouldn't do.
Either way, now the girl had just casually admitted that Caulder had multiple projects in Buffalo, New York.
“Hold on, what projects are there in Buffalo?” Rachel asked.
Suddenly the girl looked a little queasy, though not queasy enough to stop eating. “There are two projects there,” she said. “One is... well, the ma— Caulder calls it a spare parts storage.”
“That's a euphemism, isn't it?”
The girl nodded. “It is. They used to kidnap homeless people off the streets but after the Invasion they started just grabbing normal people by the truckload. There is a cell of organized resistance though. Caulder was furious that we were never able to pin them down. We're estimating about ten thousand people to still be in hiding.”
Rachel's eyebrows rose. That would be tremendous. 3.6% survival rate after all those months would be absolutely incredible. They must have some resistance over there.
“What about the other project?”
The girl sat her knife and fork down and looked ashamed. Rachel didn't say anything to hurry her along. Instead she just waited until the girl spoke. “There is a Necromancer in Buffalo.”
Rachel's eyes went wide. Necromancers were bad, bad news. Living conduits for the Outer Gods, manic shells of people who gave up their humanity for power and now existed only as sock-puppets for beings that wanted this world dead. But that didn't explain why the girl was so ashamed about it.
“And I... I was his liaison, his contact. I helped him when he was stuck on how to perform the necessary rituals.”
One did not simply become a Necromancer. Unlike every single other form of magical talent, one could not be born with a talent for Necromancy. Instead, Necromancy could only be obtained by studying the Necronomicon, a small fragment of an Outer God masquerading as a book. Instructed by this book the fledgling Necromancer would then perform three rituals, each one more vile than the last.
The only reason Rachel even knew this was because one fledgling necromancer had written a meticulous diary about his experiences with the book. This diary was a mainstay in all the libraries of Heaven and Hell, annotated by 'Radiant Prism' Kaja, protege to Angel Lord Samuel, and one half of Heaven's premier Necromancer hunting squad.
And this girl had apparently been forced to help a Necromancer with his awful rituals.
Rachel stood up and circled around the cafeteria table she was sitting at with Subject 259. The girl was trembling like a leaf as Rachel approached and finally Rachel leaned down, wrapped her arms around the girl and whispered: “I'm sorry you had to go through that.”
The girl whimpered: “You're not going to kill me for it? I helped create a Necromancer.”
“Would you have done it if you'd had a choice?”
“Of course not!”
“Then of course not,” Rachel said. “You're not the criminal here. You're as much a victim as the people in that spare parts storage.”
The girl made a skeptical noise and in response Rachel reached around and flicked her on the forehead.
“Just because you weren't dismembered and put back together wrong doesn't mean he didn't harm you. The way you're acting right now is proof of that. Got it?”
“Okay,” the girl whimpered.
**
The stench of Outsiders grew stronger and stronger the closer Esther came to Buffalo. She hadn't seen a hotbed of Outsider activity this bad since she'd left Quebec behind. Not that she had expected anything else. The Knight had said that this place was the base of operations for one of the vassals Prince Dexter had elected, one of the seven who could not only summon Outsiders into this world – anyone could do that so long as they didn't care about the state of their soul – but also control them afterwards.
And as the base of operations for one of those bastards it only stood to reason that it would be teeming with Outsiders. But that raised the question what exactly she should be looking for here. It wasn't as if she would find a big glowing portal that would lead her straight to the vassal. No. If this was a base of operations it would have someone who knew more, presumably someone dangerous or at least holed up in a well-defended place. All she needed to do was find a place that the Outsiders either avoided or actively swarmed around.
That shouldn't be too hard.
**
“We have lost contact with Subject 259 and her reconnaissance unit,” one of Caulder's servants told him. He forgot what designation it had. It was female and wore a white dress. He had dozens of those. He could check if he only looked at it with his bionic eye but he simply did not care enough to do so. He was elbow-deep in his next experiment, the successor of the Red Rider. This one would be far more terrifying, with ranged capabilities that were not so easily stopped.
But 259's disappearance boded poorly. He had sent her out to spy on the ones who had been disrupting Project Seedbed and whoever it was, they were strong enough to destroy not only his Outsider hybrids and the odd pure-blooded Outsider but also his cyborgs as well?
Maybe he would need to send out another reconnaissance squad. But this project was far more important.
“Anything else?” he demanded.
“The liaison in Buffalo reports an enormous spike of attacks on the spare parts storage.”
His lips thinned. There was a vexingly competent group of rebels in Buffalo that had managed to elude him for months now. Not only had they managed to keep thousands of useful test subjects out of his grasp, they were also intermittently attacking his facilities in the hopes of rescuing those test subjects he had already collected. And somehow, even his pet Necromancer had been unable to catch them in the act.
“I see,” Caulder hissed and he only realized that he had been clenching his fists when the lump of flesh he had been working on started whimpering.
Odd. I thought I removed its pain receptors...
“Aquarius,” Caulder asked and he didn't wait for the bored knight to reply. “Would you be so good as to keep an eye on these rebels? It appears my own subordinates are incapable of catching a group of ordinary rats.”
“I am not your servant,” the knight replied.
“Yes yes, I know,” Caulder said dryly. “I promise I'll be on my best behavior while you are out.”
The knight snorted. “The worst part is, I believe you. You're way too busy with this... thing... to do anything my master wouldn't want you to.”
“You know me so well already,” Caulder said without humor.
“You know what? Fine. I'm bored off my ass and squashing some rebels sounds like a better time than watching you butcher things while cackling.” He paused. “But if you go against my master's orders while I'm out, you best believe his shadow will come for you.”
Caulder swallowed. He had seen this 'shadow' at work once before and he would rather not be on the wrong side of his blades. Ever. “Understood.”
**
“Omega, fall back!” 'Radiant Prism' Kaja called out to her partner.
Omega didn't question, didn't argue, didn't even speak. His faith in Kaja was so absolute that when she told him to fall back he beat both pairs of wings and launched himself backward, giving her a clear line of fire at the Shoggoth they were fighting.
And she used it. The arrow she had nocked was imbued with more power than most mortal mages could draw on in a year and it spoke to the absurd durability of her magical bow that it didn't dissolve under the power of that arrow. It had taken her an entire five minutes to gather that much power and Omega had done his best to fend off their target while she'd been in meditation. And as she let go of the bowstring and the arrow flew at her target a brilliant comet tail followed it.
The arrow impacted the Shoggoth with the force of a railgun, blasting a hole two feet wide into the creature. But that initial impact paled in comparison to what happened when the arrow detonated. The arrow exploded into a kaleidoscope of laser beams and a dozen prisms made of magical ice refracted the beams a thousandfold, each carving through either the Shoggoth or the army of Outsiders behind it, cutting them all to ribbons.
By the time the spell ended the entire right flank of the battlefield had collapsed into uneven cubes of black goo, vile ectoplasm that would dissolve before long. Kaja's four wings beat lazily, keeping her just far enough off the ground that she wouldn't touch the vile stuff.
“Well done,” he told her and she couldn't stop a little smirk. Even with the flat intonation, that tiny little compliment from Omega was paramount to gushing praise from anyone else.
Even more satisfying than his compliment was seeing the entire Outsider army swerving to avoid the right flank, cowed by Kaja's display of magical mayhem.
But before Kaja could fly up and determine where else they were needed there was a flash of light and a drop-dead gorgeous woman with three pair of wings floated in front of them.
“Lady Venus,” Kaja said with a formal bow.
Omega just gave the Angel Lord a deep, formal nod of the head.
“Very well done, you two,” Lady Venus said. Even if the Seraphim was an entire rank above both Kaja and Omega, she didn't lord the difference over them. Ranks had lost a lot of meaning in the months-long war against the Outsiders, after all.
“Thank you,” Kaja said. “Is something the matter?”
“Indeed,” Lady Venus said. “The Council requires your intervention.”
Omega very pointedly looked at the right flank, too polite to state aloud that they were doing a damn fine job intervening already.
Kaja, however, picked up on the nuance. Omega and her had been partners for... well, that was a line of thought best avoided. Angels as old and well-known as her and Omega didn't have one past but several. In some of them Kaja had been birthed alongside the cosmos, as old as time itself, and Omega had been made her partner millennia later, while in others she had died as a peasant woman in the sixth century and become the partner of the already established executioner Omega. Because of this her favorite little joke was to call herself his 'little big sister'.
Either way, simply killing Outsiders had never been their whole job description. They were two forces of nature, certainly, but neither of them were mindless brutes, Omega's taciturn demeanor notwithstanding. They were Heaven's premier Necromancer hunting squad, headhunters proficient in taking out what used to be the biggest threat to the universe.
“You have detected a Necromancer, haven't you?” she asked and Omega's gaze snapped up.
“We haven't so much detected it as we were informed of its presence,” Lady Venus said. “The situation is somewhat delicate, however.”
“Delicate how?” Omega asked.
Lady Venus could have bristled at the brusque tone but she didn't. “You are aware of the project headed by Stollos Cypher?”
Omega's eyes darkened and Kaja reached out to gently place a hand over his clenched fist. But even that didn't stop him from growling: “The madman created a Necromancer? We never should not have trusted him.”
“You misunderstand,” Lady Venus said. “According to Jeanne he has been on perfect behavior. No, he has not created a Necromancer. However, they have gathered intel that a Necromancer is at large in a city they were planning on liberating.”
“So you want us to rendezvous with Stollos' test subjects and liberate the city together,” Kaja summarized.
“Precisely,” Lady Venus said.
“We work best alone,” Omega said.
“We cannot afford to risk you two,” Lady Venus said. “So please, work with them. They have a Lacrima.”
Kaja's eyes widened. It had been decades since the last time the two of them had met a Lacrima and most of the ones they'd met were the kinds of foes she preferred not to fight. They were, to a one, intelligent, powerful and driven. Fighting alongside one of them would be a pleasant change of pace. She glanced over at Omega and, in a single glance, they had an understanding.
“When should we leave?” she asked Lady Venus.
“Immediately.”
The End Of Book Three