Chapter 69 – Those Who Fear the Road Ahead

  Tallorax was nearly twice the size of Last Fall Hold and packed to the brim with creatures of all shapes and sizes. A multiversal melting pot of souls summoned to Babel, the city played host to those who had lost the ambition or the means to progress through the next floors. The safe room may have kicked climbers out, but a manned curtain wall surrounded Tallorax and offered the next best thing—if you were willing to pay for it. And if you couldn’t, you got exploited, instead.

  Cole followed Kadel past a line of shirtless workers laboring under watchful taskmasters with clubs, hauling stones to the wall from a quarry near the safe room. A haze of cloying smoke drifted through the streets from dens where addicts languished, braziers of strange drugs smoldering in hookas. Maybe they were trying to forget what they’d seen on the lower floors. Maybe they’d given up hope of anything but the next hit.

  Roxy knuckled Howie’s shoulder as he gawked at a pair of women calling down from a second story window. One of them was human, the other looked as though she’d had a dragon somewhere in her family tree with curled horns coiling back from her brow.

  “Who knows what nasty shit they’ve got here,” said Roxy. “If you pick something up, I’m not healing you.”

  “Noted,” said Howie. “But aren’t you at least—”

  “No.”

  Roxy pushed him on from behind, staring around with disgust as Howie mumbled something about natural handlebars.

  Kadel led them to what passed for the good side of town, where the streets were wide enough for three abreast and armored guards stood watch over walled villas instead of brutes and bouncers with clubs staking out pubs and hovels. The hawkers here were further between, offering finer wares. With the alleys so close and claustrophobic, and lengths of fabric strewn between rooftops for relief from the heat, Cole wasn’t entirely certain of his sense of navigation. But he concentrated on tracking the turns, making sure Kadel wasn’t leading them in circles. The half-man’s guards walked along warily, constantly sizing up Cole and the others. But if DOR had a reputation here, it made the goons not want to mess with his team. For now.

  Kadel’s house turned out to be a three-story inn decked in fabrics. Music, muffled laughter, and the occasional shout echoed out as a large bouncer wrapped in silks opened the door and allowed them access. The first floor was a wide den of table games, with a balcony running the gamut around the second level, from which climbers leered down while women, or sometimes other men or inhumans, in various states of undress hung off them in a daze that was clearly chemical—or possibly ability—induced. The whole place smelled of strange spices, smoke, and musky bodily fluids.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Roxy muttered behind him. Cole echoed her sentiment, tearing his eyes away from the depravity and followed Kadel down a set of stairs behind a bar. Cole glanced back before stepping down, making sure Roxy, Besson, and Howie were behind him. Beneath the first floor, several rooms had been carved out and curtained off. And if the tableau above hadn’t been bad enough, down here it reeked of blood and worse. Cole held his sleeve against his face against the stench.

  “Some trusted friends have tastes which lean toward the esoteric, yes,” said Kadel. “Or come from worlds where piety is measured in blood spilt and pain dealt. Kadel does not judge those who would climb. Only offers those who fear the road ahead a way to survive.”

  “Yeah, you’re a real fucking humanitarian,” said Cole. “Why are we here?”

  Kadel pulled aside one of the silk hangings from the ceiling, revealing an arcane symbol. “Such things are not fit for a jealous god’s sight. There are those who can offer reprieve from his notice, and from divination and soul sight. We are free to speak here.”

  Cole crossed his arms. “Then speak.”

  “Show Kadel the portrait again.”

  Fishing in his admin pouch, Cole pulled out the laminated photo in his Babel brochure. Kadel looked at it, and this time made no effort to disguise his disgust as he tilted it back and forth.

  “Yes. Kadel remembers. Should have known her to be of your cursed world. Wanted spirits, and something called vape. Kadel offered her all the vices she could ever want, and more if she was tired of the climb and wished to rest in Kadel’s house.”

  Cole took the packet back and stowed it. “I bet. I take it she’s not in one of those rooms up there? Which way did she go.”

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “Hardly. The girl took umbrage with Kadel’s generous offer, wounded two of my men who tried to calm her, and stole a bottle of Vlaxian liquor before fleeing the city.” Kadel narrowed his eyes. “A very expensive bottle.” He held out his hand.

  Cole sneered and slapped his hand away. “You had your chance to get bought off. Be glad I’m leaving you breathing.”

  Kadel offered a sneer of his own, and his wide, frog-like face was quite a bit better at it. “I’m afraid I must insist.”

  “Cole,” said Besson. Cole glanced back at the three armored men descending the staircase with their weapons drawn. Nutmeg began to growl. Kadel’s bodyguards drew their own weapons as the half-man stepped behind them and began to work a spell. “Your coin and your women. Challengers would pay well for such pristine flesh. One of silken black hair and one of flaxen…” He paused. “Where is the other—”

  He didn’t get a chance to finish his sentence, as the loud snap of a suppressed shot immediately preceded a spray of blood from his throat. At the same time, Cole felt the pop of an ability and Kadel’s hands froze solid, Howie just a bit quicker on the draw than the otherworld mage. Before his bodyguards had registered that they were now in a gunfight, Cole whipped up his rifle and put two rounds into the chest of each while Besson’s machine gun thundered behind him.

  The sounds of pleasure and pain from behind the curtains morphed to those of confusion and fear, and patrons began to emerge with hands clasped over their ears, looking at the aftermath and screaming or pushing past for the stairs in a daze. One of the curtains moved, revealing Nona with her smoking, suppressed carbine—with a man and woman huddled against the far wall of the cell shaking in fear. She stepped out.

  “Cole, we have a problem,” she said.

  One of the bodyguards was down, but not dead. Cole pounced forward, drawing his knife and angling it up under the guard’s chin. He jabbed it against his throat. “Yeah, I can see that.” And then to the guard: “Which way?”

  “No, a real problem,” said Nona.

  What the hell qualifies as a real problem?

  The bodyguard coughed and wheezed. Even if the 7.62 round didn’t penetrate his otherworld armor, it had left him breathless and in pain, and likely with broken ribs. “Towards… caldera,” he rasped, raising a finger in a general direction. Cole let the man drop, and the cold rush of a level-up crept up his spine.

  Fourteen, he silently counted.

  Cole wiped his blade clean on the guard’s cloak and got up, sparing a glance for Kadel, gasping and choking while blood seeped through the fingers holding his throat. Not even worth a mercy bullet. “We’ve got our twenty. Move, then talk. Besson, on point.”

  Besson angled his gun up the stairs while Roxy moved to cover him with her shield and shotgun.

  Upstairs, people were confused but not yet panicking. Most backed away when they saw the drawn weapons, though a few guards produced primitive otherworld firearms of their own.

  “Gun, gun, gun!” called Roxy as she discharged her shotgun. One of the guards sprayed red as her weapon thundered, and a moment later flared with blue flame from her weapon’s new secondary affix. And that did cause a panic. Drunkards, gamblers, and guards scrambled, overturning tables and sending cards and coins scattering. Cole took out one more house guard before there were too many people running in all different directions for him to get a clean shot. A round went over his head. He burned enough of his charge to get target marking, but it was just a confusing sea of red, as whatever part of his subconscious dictated friend from foe did not consider any otherworlder in Babel to be an ally.

  Besson had let his gun hang, switching to his axe and buckler for close quarters. Besson’s skin took on a greyish sheen along with Nutmeg's, and the pair created a path to the door the rest of the team was able to follow.

  “Last man!” Cole called as he pushed Nona ahead of himself. He made for a direction, but Nona grabbed his arm and pulled the opposite way. “No, this way!”

  Out under the harsh light of the artificial sun, the rest of the team looked to Cole. Considering for only a moment, he waved the squad over. Nona shot him a quick look of thanks before leading them around, then over to an alley that cut between Kadel’s house and the next several compounds, then hooked around to a pile of rubbish stacked up against a wall. Nona scrambled up and over, and Cole made sure the rest of his team made it over before climbing up himself.

  They kept low, weapons at the ready, as Nona led them into the bottom floor, past a startled inhuman that Roxy stopped to calm, and up to the rooftop. Nona dropped flat and motioned for Cole to do the same. They crawled to the edge of the roof, and Nona pointed down.

  Thanks to his enhanced Acuity, Cole could clearly see the patterns in the panic from above, including the several armored figures fighting the flow. He angled his rifle scope down for more magnification, squinting through the aperture as he dialed up the zoom. Under his crosshairs, his target resolved into a man in thick, lacquered armor with a helmet twisted in the shape of a snarling wolf-like creature. He scanned the crowd, seeing several more.

  Hawk, Dragon… Rat, maybe?… something furry.

  These ones weren’t quite as huge as Ram-head, but they still towered over the mages accompanying them. Cole didn’t expect he’d be able to repeat his shot from Curahee without the whole group being on them in seconds. Two of the knights forced their way into the house, weapons drawn.

  “Something tells me they’re not here to challenge the tower,” muttered Cole. He backed away from the edge of the roof. This complicated things.

  The sun beating down from overhead was even harsher than he’d felt in Qatar or Iraq. Without enhanced Resilience and the sun cloaks, he doubted they’d be more than a couple hours from a heat casualty. But it was still uncomfortable, even with the LF attunement. He went back inside with Nona, out from underneath the artificial sun and down to where the villa’s owner had been persuaded to sit while Nutmeg sat, watching him.

  “What’s the deal?” asked Roxy. “How boned are we?”