offer,” came Agamemnon's reply. “But I'm afraid I'll have to refuse.” His expression darkened and he raised the scythe towards the heavens, bellowing a single word. “Arise!”
The ground beneath my feet trembled a little. The grass quivered and the soil began to part. From the soil erupted searching, bony hands. I felt my ankles bound, then my calves. Looking at my feet, I noticed there must have been at least ten zombies springing out of the dirt all about me, with still more from the previous throng now coming into the picture.
Panicking, I dropped the tough guy talk and started pounding heads. You can probably guess how things turned out, though. Kubo had been right; he'd warned me that the zombies were weak by themselves, but that a swarm of them could mean trouble. Though I managed to destroy a couple, the mass of groaning zombies quickly overcame me. For every one of my limbs I had several of the undead holding me down. My wrists, ankles, waist; they clung to me from every angle with unbelievable strength.
I couldn't break free.
Agamemnon strolled towards me, holding the scythe close to his body and admiring the work his minions had done. “Where is your braggadocio now, demon?” His eyes narrowed. “What have you gotten yourself into? I wonder-- can you talk yourself out of this mess?”
I had a zombie hanging around my neck, and another standing behind me, with his putrid, rotting arms wrapped around my midsection, which made it pretty difficult to speak. Still, Gadreel burst to the surface and spat out a sporting “Fuck you.”
I felt the tip of the scythe against my breast. The moment it touched me, the fatigued wooziness washed over me once more and the grip of the surrounding zombies felt all the more crushing. My captor brought his weapon to my chin, musing about how best to execute me. “Carving out that heart of yours would be most enjoyable, though such a death wouldn't cause you the suffering you deserve. Perhaps we could start higher up. An ear, first. Then your nose. Your tongue...”
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I was walking a fine line between life and death here and had absolutely zero interest in becoming Agamemnon's newest recruit. If you'd asked me, plain old Lucian, I'd have told you Gadreel and I were sunk just then. That we'd reached into our bag of tricks and come up with nothing more than a fistful of lint and sticky pennies. The demon, though, had a stroke of genius.
I spit in the necromancer's face. It wasn't easy to do, but Gadreel delivered a high-speed loogie that landed on Agamemnon's cheek.
You know what happened from there.
Agamemnon roared in pain as his flesh was quickly eaten away.
Demonic acid spit, ladies and gentlemen. Don't leave home without it.
While the necromancer clutched at his face and doubled over, I found my opening. The odds were stacked against me and I had little hope of breaking away from the zombies, but I had to try. I let Gadreel into the captain's chair and felt his power flooding my every corner. Nerve endings I didn't even know I had tingled with demonic energy as the ambient temperature suddenly dropped by ten degrees. The smell of rain waxed dominant and the skies directly overhead began to hiccough with the promise of a storm.
The hill was lit up by a lightning strike. The second I'd launched within the span of minutes. All around me the walking dead were incinerated, their bodies rocked by the jolt of a million volts and their brittle shapes bursting into flame.
I staggered down the hill, treading through mounds of smoldering ash with my hair standing on end. I couldn't really hear anything and my eyes were watery for the flash of light, so my vision was pretty shot, too. But I was alive.
I didn't turn to survey the damage, to see whether the necromancer had been caught in the blast. I knew that bastard had made it. He'd survived my lightning bolt once; the second might've hit him, but I knew better than to think
The ground beneath my feet trembled a little. The grass quivered and the soil began to part. From the soil erupted searching, bony hands. I felt my ankles bound, then my calves. Looking at my feet, I noticed there must have been at least ten zombies springing out of the dirt all about me, with still more from the previous throng now coming into the picture.
Panicking, I dropped the tough guy talk and started pounding heads. You can probably guess how things turned out, though. Kubo had been right; he'd warned me that the zombies were weak by themselves, but that a swarm of them could mean trouble. Though I managed to destroy a couple, the mass of groaning zombies quickly overcame me. For every one of my limbs I had several of the undead holding me down. My wrists, ankles, waist; they clung to me from every angle with unbelievable strength.
I couldn't break free.
Agamemnon strolled towards me, holding the scythe close to his body and admiring the work his minions had done. “Where is your braggadocio now, demon?” His eyes narrowed. “What have you gotten yourself into? I wonder-- can you talk yourself out of this mess?”
I had a zombie hanging around my neck, and another standing behind me, with his putrid, rotting arms wrapped around my midsection, which made it pretty difficult to speak. Still, Gadreel burst to the surface and spat out a sporting “Fuck you.”
I felt the tip of the scythe against my breast. The moment it touched me, the fatigued wooziness washed over me once more and the grip of the surrounding zombies felt all the more crushing. My captor brought his weapon to my chin, musing about how best to execute me. “Carving out that heart of yours would be most enjoyable, though such a death wouldn't cause you the suffering you deserve. Perhaps we could start higher up. An ear, first. Then your nose. Your tongue...”
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I was walking a fine line between life and death here and had absolutely zero interest in becoming Agamemnon's newest recruit. If you'd asked me, plain old Lucian, I'd have told you Gadreel and I were sunk just then. That we'd reached into our bag of tricks and come up with nothing more than a fistful of lint and sticky pennies. The demon, though, had a stroke of genius.
I spit in the necromancer's face. It wasn't easy to do, but Gadreel delivered a high-speed loogie that landed on Agamemnon's cheek.
You know what happened from there.
Agamemnon roared in pain as his flesh was quickly eaten away.
Demonic acid spit, ladies and gentlemen. Don't leave home without it.
While the necromancer clutched at his face and doubled over, I found my opening. The odds were stacked against me and I had little hope of breaking away from the zombies, but I had to try. I let Gadreel into the captain's chair and felt his power flooding my every corner. Nerve endings I didn't even know I had tingled with demonic energy as the ambient temperature suddenly dropped by ten degrees. The smell of rain waxed dominant and the skies directly overhead began to hiccough with the promise of a storm.
The hill was lit up by a lightning strike. The second I'd launched within the span of minutes. All around me the walking dead were incinerated, their bodies rocked by the jolt of a million volts and their brittle shapes bursting into flame.
I staggered down the hill, treading through mounds of smoldering ash with my hair standing on end. I couldn't really hear anything and my eyes were watery for the flash of light, so my vision was pretty shot, too. But I was alive.
I didn't turn to survey the damage, to see whether the necromancer had been caught in the blast. I knew that bastard had made it. He'd survived my lightning bolt once; the second might've hit him, but I knew better than to think
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