The Dalles moved quickly out the truck's window, like a gray pinwheel being spun around and around. For all the city's virtues it was hardly known for its distinctive landmarks--nor was Vondra known for slowing down to sight-see when Epics had stepped out of their place.
Rhonda watched the gray city whiz past, largely ignoring the anxious commander sitting in the front seat. Not that there was much to ignore--Vondra didn't pester the tired soldier doing the driving--but there were much more interesting things to look at than Vondra staring at the vehicle's dashboard as if it were deliberately trying to spite him by moving too slowly.
Instead, she opened her tablet and reviewed her reason for living.
At the very front of her files were a series of photos--photographs leftover from her studies in days gone by. Some were in black and white, others color. Some had come practically free, while others held a hefty price. What they held in common was a matter of content: each one showed a dark god in its natural habitat.
One showed a man with godlike physique floating above a tower of solid steel, cape flapping in a wind rushing from below him. Another showed a tall shirtless man sitting upright in a beach chair as if it were some kind of throne--he'd merely be a melodramatic sunbather were it not for the sword leaning against his side and the thick Bible in his lap. The pictures went on. A woman in the hide of a polar bear, sleet and hail pouring around her. A woman in a glistening dress of pure crystal, a disinterested yet somehow still snobby look on her face as she stepped atop a rising diamond spike. The newest photo in the collection, a blurry snapshot of an enormous winged panda soaring above The Dalles amidst a sky of dark clouds.
All were creatures that could singlehandedly reduce the city to rubble and scorched skeletons if they wanted to. Commander Vondra knew them as well as Rhonda did, but he refused to see what their existence meant. He continued to stubbornly cling to the idea that the City Guard alone could protect the town from the new rulers of the planet--sparks, the man had personally challenged one of them in the air with a helicopter that might as well be tinfoil against the greater Epics. The truth was right in front of him, but he refused to acknowledge it.
The world was filled with demons, and it was only the bound devils in his service that kept the city's walls standing against them. The day he forgot that would be the day the people of The Dalles saw their homes burn around them to the cackling of a force of nature gone mad.
Well, Rhonda didn't forget. When the final unstoppable demon came hurtling into town, there'd be at least one devil standing by to stop it in its tracks.
The truck pulled into the central square of the city, and Vondra was the first to step out. A few guards immediately came to his side, but he was uninterested in their salutes, meeting their gazes with a glare like hard iron.
"Where are the victims?"
The victims were three in number, scattered across the plaza with teams of medics scurrying around them like termites. Vondra felt his blood pressure rise when he recognized them on sight--Anthony Decker, one of his personnel managers, Arnold Demingsworth, one of the last qualified schoolteachers in the city, and Jennifer Kennings, a soldier who'd been defending this city from the very beginning all those years ago.
A lieutenant with a bloodied lip and a fatigued expression arrived by his side, saluting before launching into a crisp explanation. "Three victims, each with varying degrees of dismemberment. They were all listed as MIA during yesterday's assault--we hadn't seen hide nor hair of them until they were dropped off here early this morning."
The lieutenant sighed before leading the commander to Decker's side. "No one saw who dropped them off, before you ask. All we have to go on is the symbol."
Vondra raised an eyebrow, but then he caught side of gleaming metal around the bloodied bandages on the sides of Decker's head. His ears were solid silver, emblazoned with the image of a long sword sticking partway out of its sheath.
"Quicksilver," he breathed, clenching his fists in anger. The Dalles' resident serpent had finally come out of its burrow.
Decker didn't hear his commander's voice, nor did his eyes seem to see him. He was trembling slightly, staring off at nothing in particular--according to a nearby medic, he was still in shock. Vondra made a note to call the man's family and moved to the next.
Demingsworth the teacher was in a similar state, though the man somehow managed to smile as his commander approached. Vondra matched the smile with one of his own, with a firm handshake and salute of respect passed between them. No words were spoken. According to the lieutenant in a hushed tone, Demingsworth would speak no words ever again.
Finally there was Sergeant Kennings, sitting with a red stained bandage wrapped around her eyes. Vondra gave a questioning glance at his lieutenant, who only nodded solemnly. If he were to peel back that bandage, the same travesty would meet his sight.
"Sir," Kennings acknowledged, apparently hearing his footsteps.
"Sergeant," Vondra responded, giving a nod that the blinded woman couldn't see.
"My family. Will they be looked after?" the woman asked abruptly, staring in the general direction of Vondra's voice.
The commander gave a tight smile--again, a gesture Kennings would never see. "Sergeant, you and your will be provided with all the honor due to a wounded soldier and her loved ones. Consider yourself honorably discharged--I'll file out the paperwork before noon."
Surprisingly, Kennings gave a crooked smile of her own. "Please, sir. You'll make the others jealous." Her face evened, and her tone became grim again. "This... this was a message, sir. A message from Quicksilver."
Vondra frowned. "I guessed as much. Epics can't just use words, though."
"There were words." Kennings swallowed hard, bowing her head low. "He quoted an old proverb. Something biblical I guess. 'Hear no evil. Speak no evil.' The slontze thinks he's some kind of prophet."
Anger flushed up from within him, and his fists clenched again. "If he wants a crusade, we'll give him one."
Kennings didn't respond for a moment, and the commander started to move on. Before he'd taken two steps away though, her voice spoke again. "Sir, please allow me to remain on duty. I don't care if it's pushing buttons or talking on a telephone. Just let me keep fighting." Her voice sank to a grumble, but Vondra made out the words "not broken."
Vondra looked at the woman in surprise, but found himself slowly nodding. "We'll find something. If that's what you wish."
The sergeant didn't speak again, and Vondra felt his legs carrying him away from the trio of mutilated citizens, and towards the stern-faced man lurking at the very edges of the plaza.
"Good morning, commander," said Arsenal stiffly.
Vondra raised an eyebrow at the old man, feeling another flush of rage. "Good? I take it you haven't read Quicksilver's message?"
Arsenal refused to meet the commander's gaze, staring out over the sunlit street. "I know who delivered it."
"Three of the people we swore to protect."
"No. The man who delivered them," Arsenal amended, turning back to the commander. "Look."
The old man took a crisp sheet of paper out of his uniform pocket, handing it to Vondra. Turning it over, it revealed a series of photos of a middle-aged Asian man in a black truck, showing his image in fine detail from a dozen angles as he dropped off the captives and tied them to lampposts.
The images really were in fine detail...
"Sparks, Daniel," Vondra muttered as he turned over the sheet. "How many cameras do you have in this square?"
"Not enough," the chaplain replied stiffly. "If I'd had cameras on every street, I could have traced the truck back to its origin. As it is, all we have is a face to track."
Vondra didn't respond to the criticism. He was too angry--furious at Quicksilver, furious at his own inabilities, and most of all, furious at Arsenal for being right.
Quicksilver needed to be fought, but there was no way of touching him. Unless...
"Sir," the gravelly voice continued, softer than usual. "We both know we can't let this stand. Let me go on the attack."
Vondra met Arsenal's eyes with a cautious expression. "What do you intend to do? Have a camera in every house and every room? Monitor every citizen in the city twenty four hours a day?"
"If necessary," Arsenal replied. "Until then, door-to-door searches would do wonders towards narrowing down his possible lairs."
The commander didn't respond.
"If Quicksilver were powerful enough to overwhelm us by brute force, he'd have done so already," Arsenal pressed on. There was a curious note to his voice--not his usual grumpiness, but something more akin to a passion. "All we need is his location, and we could have him dead with a single assault."
The pair of them were silent on the street for a minute, sirenless ambulances arriving to cart away the victims of Quicksilver's message.
"If I give you full power," Vondra said quietly, "This town becomes a totalitarian state. We'll have exchanged all of the Epic tyrants out there with one from within."
"Sir," Arsenal replied curtly. "You deny it, but The Dalles was a dictatorship from the day you declared martial law. Neither of us were elected. Before yesterday, we'd seen more opposition from our own chaotic citizens than we'd seen from Epics. The laws we upheld are dead. If you hold too tightly to them, you'll go the same way--and I promise you that Quicksilver or Lucentia or that storming panda will have far less respect for your laws than even I do."
Vondra met the Epic's eyes, cold fury meeting an old man's stiff determination. A long minute passed, before Vondra turned again to the ambulances now leaving the plaza.
A sword halfway drawn from its sheath. What would happen when the sword was drawn in earnest?
"Destroy that man, Daniel," Vondra whispered. "Him and every last servant in his employ. But if you ruffle the slightest hair of one of this town's innocents, then there won't be a bleeding star in the sky that can protect you from me."
Arsenal gave a cold, tight-lipped smile that managed to be less genuine than the blinded sergeant's had been. "Oh, I stopped thinking there's anything in the sky looking out for me a long time ago." He pulled a radio from his pocket, expression becoming grim once again.
"We're going to war now, commander. Let's make sure we use every last sword at our disposal."
Deathwish had been punched twice this morning, which made grand promises for the rest of the day.
He walked and occasionally floated alongside the strict Guardsmen flanking him on both sides, making his way steadily to the town's HQ. In between bouts of telling off-color jokes and asking about his guard's sisters, he rubbed his slightly aching jaw and scowled.
Who knew a bleeding blind chick could still throw a punch? I wasn't even gonna touch her long.
At least the lieutenant who got mad enough to punch him after the fact actually had the arm strength to break his lip. Edgar Hawk had been cursed as well as blessed--he could reflect all the bloody strikes and punches from heavy guys, but a hot chick would still leave a painful slap. One would almost think Calamity was a prude.
The guards brought the quietly contemplating Deathwish into HQ, depositing him in the hall outside Vondra's office and instructing him to stay put. Deathwish replied with a mock salute as the nutcrackers filed out, leaning against a wall and wishing he'd thought to keep a gentleman's magazine in his pocket. It would be just like Mayor Vondra to keep him waiting just to prove a point.
Then he saw someone else waiting outside the office, and realized waiting wouldn't be so bad.
She was a tall woman, with a head of red hair and nice skin she didn't seem scared to show. She wore tight jeans, a low cut blouse, and a pair of jewel-like sunglasses that made her eyes impossible to track. There could be no doubt that this wasn't a prudish vanilla like Autumn or a simpering half-Epic like Edgerunner. This was an angel.
An angel with a very nice bust.
Slicking his hair back with one hand, Deathwish sauntered to her side and caught her attention with a quick brush on the bum.
"Hello there, your majesty," he smirked with a wink. "You're Epic on at least three counts, but I bet the old man doesn't care about the best two."
In case that was too subtle, he let his eyes drop down to her cleavage for a noticeable second.
"What brings you outside an unappreciative old fart's door?"
