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Chapter 11: Disbanding

Screeching tires roared as Kris slammed on the brakes, nearly releasing all of the airbags in the process. Standing on the large marble staircase that sat beautifully before the entrance to Dominique's gaudy mansion was my friend and mentor, Dante, looking as flustered and discontent as he probably should. He stood there with his eyes averted, staring at the ground. Though he still seemed adamant about not seeing or speaking to me, he looked as though he had come to terms with the fact that we would have to sit down and 'chat' eventually.

"Alright everyone!" Dominique commanded as she kicked open her passenger's side door. "Get inside and head downstairs into the basement! Alan, you help me with... with Zeke's body!"

Dante's eyes flashed open suddenly, peering tentatively in our direction.

"Zeke's body?" He questioned hesitantly, nervously. "He's... he's dead?"

"That's right." I replied grimly, averting my eyes as well. "He's gone; shot in the chest while we were escaping."

"By the scoundrels at Section 2 and that bastard Norton?" The French shade asked timidly. "I was notified not too long ago by a few members of Icewulf; they reported on the situation and said that you'd been captured. They came to warn your father and I, telling us that you were in danger and that we could be in danger as well. I was too late to join the others in your rescue, so I came here and waited for your arrival. I know it wasn't long, but it felt like more than a few years had passed while I waited..."

He trailed off into silence for a moment, continuing to stare at the ground. For a ghost, physical wounds and abrasions were as nothing, but emotional scars were still all too real. I couldn't help but to feel sorry for him. It was clear that he knew much too much about the situation; that he was connected to it in ways that he wished he wasn't. Well, it was either that or something else just as troubling.

"...Dominic, about your father..." Dante started to say, just before getting cut off by Kris.

"Cut the chitchat you two and get in the fucking house!" Kris shouted angrily, grabbing me by the shoulder and pushing me towards the doors. "We're going to have some very bad company very soon, so I'd prefer to get this whole grocery cart bagged and checked out; if you know what I mean!"

"Wait a minute..." I said in protest, before witnessing Zeke being taken from the van and lugged inside. Watching his body bing handled like luggage was more than enough to shut me up.

"Stop stalling!" Exclaimed Kris again, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me towards the building. "I'll haul you inside, over my shoulder, if I absolutely have to!"

Being thrown inside a mansion and hurried down a long flight of stairs has a magical way of screwing up a conversation. By the time that we arrived down in Dominique's insectarium, I'd long since forgotten about whatever it was that Dante was readying himself to say and was instead preparing my own questionnaire for him to answer.

Kids, grab your pencils and open your packets to page three.

"Dante?" I asked solemnly. "It's high time that you fill me in on why you've been avoiding me ever since the abomination incident. You froze up the moment you heard the name, Helios, and then took nearly a week before coming back to reality. You should know that running away from the truth and refusing to acknowledge it are not acceptable fixes for a bad situation, not at all; they're obstacles. You've got to tell me what's going on and you've got to tell me now."

His face turned bright red as he averted his eyes from my piercing gaze. He looked as though someone had spray painted his face cherry red.

"Helios is my brother." Said Dante reluctantly, now staring at a wall to my left. He still couldn't face me directly, and who could blame him, what with the information that he'd just let loose. "Helios Albireo LaCroix, named for the Mayan sun god and the binary stars colored sapphire and gold; he was born with the winds of fate behind his back and streets of silver beneath his feet. I never stood a chance in comparison."

"...Brother?" I managed to muster. "Are you kidding?"

"Not at all, though I wish I was." He answered. "Helios became a daywalker quite some time ago, back during my final days as a living mortal. We were attacked by one of the most feared vampires of our time, Victor Garmscythe, whilst serving our master and educator; the two of us trained as apprentice warlocks together. Well, one way or another, both of us were mortally wounded upon sight; precise stab wounds through our hearts. During his heyday, Garmscythe was quite famous for his quick and efficient methods of execution, especially when compared to all of the other barbaric murderers that lurked and slithered through the darkened streets. Once we were on the ground and swiftly bleeding away, the madman was kind enough to give us two very simple options. We could become fellow daywalkers and serve under him as disposable pawns and vassals, or we could die on the cold ground like the worthless mongrels that we were. I chose death, as amazing as that may sound, but Helios chose to live on and cheat death in the form of a monster."

"He became a vampire in order to survive?" I questioned uncertainly; not entirely able to hate a decision like that unconditionally. After all, when your only choices are to 'live' or 'die', most would opt to veer away from the latter choice.

"Yes..., and he eventually killed Garmscythe as well." Dante added. "Though I distinctly remember, even in my old age, watching my brother and my murderer abandon me there on the ground; the two of them just disappearing into the bleak night."

"...I'm sorry." I mumbled, unable to say much more than that. "I didn't know."

"I've always had faith in him." He continued, now stuck in his story. "I've always believed that he'd come and seek me out after having rid the world of that mass murdering, serial killing monster. To think that he'd inevitably become the very same thing..., the shame, the indignity, the dishonor of it all."

The word 'Frenchmen' came to mind, but there was no way in Hell I could spit that out and get away with it; not now anyway.

"...There's nothing you could have done about it, right?" I stated gently, trying not to upset him any further. "Because you were familiar with the suspect's name, I thought that you might have been connected to the crime too. But I didn't know that the connection between you two was so old..., nor did I know that the connection was one of blood. I really am sorry, Dante; I shouldn't have doubted you."

"No, you've nothing to be sorry for." Dante retorted, turning his head and looking me in the eyes at last. "You were right in questioning me; completely right and don't you dare believe otherwise. I just wish I could be more helpful, I wish I knew more about my brother than I do... But I guess being apart and distanced on bad terms for over a century can distort your perspective of a person."

"I would imagine so." I agreed.

"I know that he, much like myself, possesses a vast and expansive knowledge of the magical arts." Explained the ghost. "I know that he is no longer human, but rather, a daywalker. I know that the undead have a natural gift, a knack, for unholy magic and necromancy. But beyond all of that, I know nothing else."

"So although we know that Helios has the ABILITY to commit all of these necromantic crimes, we're still not certain as to whether or not he actually DID or DIDN'T commit them?" I questioned aloud. "Damn, that's pretty much what I'd figured out regardless; this isn't helping!"

Having finally spoken with Dante, I was satisfied. Whatever happened next, wherever we were going, I was ready to take the leap of faith.

"Okay, if everyone's ready, we're preparing to open the portal to the Badlands!" Dominique announced, calling everyone into a football huddle. "Dante, I'm to understand that you have some experience when it comes to this sort of advanced gateway spell?! If you'd be so kind, I'd like you to assist!"

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold the phone... Did she just say the Badlands? THE Badlands? She couldn't have, right? Did these guys actually think their plan all the way through? If our only escape route ends up taking us through scenic Gehenna, then they can count me out of the equation!

"Wait a minute, did you just say we were going to the Badlands?!" I exclaimed, unconvinced that I had actually heard her correctly. "That can't be our last option, our ace in the hole, right?!"

Faster than I could follow, Dominique span around and grabbed me by the collar of my shirt, shouting in my face, "We're all out of options, so I'll have no complaints out of you, got it?! Plan B, plan C, and plan D all fell short like lead balloons, a big mess of failure, but we've still got a chance! Don't ruin everything by whining and fussing, not when we can still win this! Do you understand?! Am I crystal-fucking-clear?!"

"Crystal clear, sir!" I promptly replied; scared to death.

"Good, then stand back and stay out of the way!" She growled fervently.

Well, with those wonderful words in mind, I suppose that there's no getting around this little excursion. As things stood, I'd be taking a trip to a VERY distant place VERY soon. The Badlands are a massive desert wasteland located in an alternate world known as Florencia, though more commonly known as the 'Magical Realm'. Yeah, people can be pretty unoriginal sometimes; sue them, not me. Consisting of two continents separated by a massive ocean of poison called 'The Sea of Styx', Florencia's two major continents are Jenohva, the heavily forested dominion of the faeries and the elves, and the Badlands, an arid purgatory of endless sand dunes. Populated mostly by goblins and imps, the Badlands are a harsh place to visit, let alone live in. Besides the roving hoards of monsters, the mountainous areas are also home to dwarves and harpies, not to mention the Wild West-esque shanty towns populated sparsely here-and-there by humans. This was not a livable environment for anybody unprepared or unfamiliar, and seeing as how I'd only ever had the pleasure of visiting once or twice, I really didn't want to tempt fate by taking a prolonged vacation there. But sadly, I didn't have much of a choice in the matter. With demons in black business suits hot on our heels, remaining in the glorious lands of humanity certainly didn't seem like much of an option. And besides, I owed it to Zeke to make it out of this whole fiasco alive...

And then the alarms went off, only spurring me to make my decision that much faster.

"Lady Rainstorm, Lady Rainstorm!" Shouted the voice of a maid from the top of the stairwell. "Several cars just now pulled into the driveway! Men are piling out of them; there are so many of them!"

Biting her lip, Dominique yelled back, "Bar the doors and raise the defenses! I want every magical ward set into place and maintained; keep them at bay for as long as you can!" Turning to face me, my name-sharing sister snarled, "We've no time, dammit! You're going to the Badlands and you're going to like it!"

"...Fine, fine, we'll go and hide in the veritable depths of Hell." I sighed, turning my head towards my recently acquired luggage and suddenly questioning the entire scenario again. "Hey, what about this girl?! We can't take a crippled child to the Badlands! That'd be just like having an extremely late abortion! She'd never survive!"

"Tough!" Shouted an irritated Kris. "You already agreed to the plan, so you're just gonna have to protect the girl yourself!"

"And anyway, would she really have been better off staying with those turncoat bastards back at that testing facility place?" Beck inquired. "She's lucky you saved her, Mike, even if there's still a bit of danger still around the corner."

With doubts still in my mind, I wiped the sweat from my forehead. I hate making big decisions; they always give me headaches.

"...Anything is better than going back there..." Said the little girl with her mind; her lips unmoving. "...Please take me with you... Please..."

I sighed and said with a smile, "I'm not going to leave you behind; none of us are."

Though her name was still a mystery and though I was still ignorant to her past plight, I held this girl in my arms, close as though she were my own daughter. Both of our futures were being decided and I didn't have time to try to hide behind her or use her as a reason to avoid the unavoidable. As she gripped my shirt and shuddered, I realized that protecting her was now indeed my duty, if not my total obligation. Looking off to the side, I spied her bag sitting on the floor; the one that I'd taken while hastily making my retreat from Norton's little fun-house. With the little one still in my arms, I knelt down and opened the bag, immediately finding exactly what I was looking for. The clipboard that I'd throw in earlier was no doubt her medical information, and written in bold lettering across the top was her name: Nina Sinclair. Shoving the clipboard back in the bag, I smiled stupidly to myself. At the very least, I had a name for her now.

"Nina?" I said softly. "Nina, we're going to get you out of here, okay? It's going to be scary, it might even hurt a little along the way, but we're going to get you out of here nonetheless."

She looked up at me and smiled, a priceless expression for such an adorable little girl.

"Thank you, Dominic." She whispered, speaking with her actual voice.

Up to this point, I'd only ever heard her speak using her telepathy, so actually hearing her say something with her voice was a strangely magical experience. I felt privileged, as though it were an honor that I wasn't worthy of. All I could do was hold her tighter and try to calm her shivering. Sadly, I can't say that I helped much, especially with a frighteningly loud explosion in the background that could only have been caused by the mansion's front doors being blown open by force. Nina, sniffling and on the verge of tears, grabbed on to my shirt even harder.

"Are you ready?" Asked Dominique. "The barricades between the upper levels and this basement are both many and strong, but they won't last forever."

I took a deep breath and replied, "Yeah, let's do this."

"Good, then take this with you." My half-elf sister stated as she handed me a heavy backpack. "There's a fair amount of dwarven currency and several days worth of food rations inside, not to mention a few other necessities. Your job is to make your way to Burlington, the dwarven mining capitol located in the valley below the peaks of the Highwind Mountain Range. Once there, seek out Agatha Hawthorne Rosemary, the commander of the Icewulf, and do EXACTLY as she instructs." Picking up an all too familiar golf bag, she stepped behind me and slid it over my shoulder before adding, "And here are a few things that you neglected to pick up after our last lovely little excursion. I don't know how reliable your enchantments are, but they might come in handy too."

Dumbstruck, it took a few seconds for me to reply. Finally ably to sort out my thoughts, I responded with, "Hey, stop the car! Are you telling me that you're not coming with us?! No, no, no, that's not right, not at all! Why would you even think of staying behind?!"

"...You fail to understand the depth of the situation." Forte interjected, his expression quite sullen. "This is a journey that you must embark upon, not us. Dominique and I will stay as you flee, holding the enemy at bay until we are completely certain that you have escaped unharmed."

"Yeah, it's a really complicated process." Kris grunted as he hurried on by, a textbook in one hand and a vial of some unknown liquid in the other. "Portals don't remain open for very long, not long at all actually, but they can still be tracked down and even reopened. We have to maintain a defense here for at least 15 minutes after your departure. After that, it should be impossible for them to locate you or your destination. Once you're out of here, Forte and Dominique are gonna open a portal of their own and escape into the depths of the Netherwood, then Alan and I are gonna split off into a portal of our own as well. With your portal's trail impossible to follow and two other portals splitting off into opposite directions, Norton won't have the slightest idea of where to look for you."

"And Forte and I will be fine, totally fine, so don't worry!" Dominique shouted frantically, buzzing around gathering materials as well. "I'm an elf, I've scouted and traversed the Netherwood more than a hundred times, and Forte is more than ten times my age and ten times as powerful! So, even though the place is festering with evil and serves as a veritable brick wall for most wayfarers, we'll breeze right through it as though it were nothing! It's essentially our road home, right?!"

No, this wasn't happening. I couldn't be happening. They were sacrificing themselves for me...

"This is insane!" I yelled furiously. "You're all going to stay behind and face an unknown amount of enemies for an extended period of time, then take flight to some potentially even more dangerous locations?! What kind of a plan is that?! People don't escape from a horde of demons by opening a portal straight to Hell!"

Dominique eyed me for a moment then said forcefully, "It's the only plan we've got. The only one. There's nothing else left we can do. We've put all of our cards on the table and bet a lot of money on the outcome, so be a man and don't back out of the game!"

"But~" I objected; quickly cut off by Alan.

"No, no protests! You've protested far too much already! At this point, you're only wasting precious time!" He declared firmly. "The magical barriers that block portal travel to Jenohva cannot be bypassed, not in any way known to man or beast, so we're opening a portal to a dangerous death trap that LEADS to Jenohva. That's a close as we can get! And yes, the Netherwood is a perilous forest filled with monsters of every shape and size, of that we're all most certain, but it's also one of the few physical links between this world and the faerie kingdom. Norton and his Section 2 foot soldiers wouldn't dare follow Forte and Dominique into their own territory, the domain of the faerie queen. A foolish, hurried advance such as that would only result in a sudden surplus of corpses."

"And as for Alan and I, well we've got a long series of places we'll be jumping between." Kris said with a smirk, once again sticking his signature cigarette between his teeth. "Boats and cars and trains and so on... They'll never catch us, so just take your two girlfriends and the ghost, and get the Hell out of here."

"What about you, Dante?" I pleaded. "You're coming with us aren't you?"

"I'm sorry, but I have to stay behind as well." He answered glumly. "I'm the one that has to manage the portals for the others, I'm the only one who has the proper experience it seems."

"Are you serious?" I muttered crossly.

"Absolutely serious." He countered, grinning sharply. "Besides, I'm already dead, what else could they possibly do to me?"

Determined to force me through that portal one way or another, I relented and simply nodded my head. I didn't want to leave them, but with so much planning having gone into this whole operation, screwing things up now would be just like giving them the finger and spitting in each of their faces. So I put on the backpack, grabbed Nina in one arm, her bag in the other arm, had Beck grab my shoulder, and stepped towards the glowing circle of light that floated in front of me. Just before entering the luminous gateway, I turned back and looked across the room at each of my comrades. Sad faces and trounced spirits were all I could see.

"Forte, don't lie to me, alright?" I sighed, stepping closer to the light. "I'm pretty sure that Dante was about to tell me this before he was interrupted a short while earlier, but I want to hear the truth from you, okay?"

"What is it?" Asked Forte diffidently, probably already prepared to answer my question.

"My Dad's dead isn't he?" I questioned, giving my best informal smile. "You guys went to my house, you did, but he was already long gone by then wasn't he?"

Immediately, Forte bowed his head and clasped his hands, kneeling before me. He responded, "I beg your forgiveness for my mendacious lie, Dominic. You home was in pieces. Your father was nowhere to be found. Yes, he is dead. We arrived too late to save him."

Beck was speechless, her grip on my shoulder wavering, but I knew that I had to say something. I knew that it was a necessary lie.

"You did what you had to do, Alan, Kris, Forte; everyone." I stated, unfettered. "I would have rushed home and into Death's embrace had you not lied, and I'm thankful to you for that. I'm certain that my Dad wouldn't have wanted me to die at my age and I'm also pretty sure that he wouldn't have wanted me to abandon this child either. I was unstable and unable to think clearly at the time. You all made the right call."

Still kneeling, Forte cried, "You are too kind, young Dominic, far too kind! I do not deserve your forgiveness! Please, if you would only curse my name or hate me, I would feel more at ease! I deceived you and lied about your own father's death, so please, please hate me!"

Beck's face displayed a wide range of shock, fear, and grief, all rolled up into one single emotion. She staggered for a moment, the normally bulletproof defense of her soul now made irresolute and shaken. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but as she brushed them away, she closed her eyes and clenched her fists. As she reopened her eyes, I could see that the strong fighter's spirit had returned, as sturdy and rock solid as ever. Neither Beck nor I could blame Forte or the others for this tragedy...

"...I can't do that, Forte." I chuckled lightly. "It might hurt you to know this, but no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, I could never hate you. I could never hate my little brother..."

And with those corny words spoken and out of the way, I carried on with my own rescue mission and took one more step towards the bright wall of radiance. I felt a wave of energy rush over and around my body, pulsing through me like a low voltage static surge. White noise crackled and hissed all around me as I tried to maintain my composure. As I opened my eyes and my vision refocused, I lost my footing and nearly slipped. Looking down, I saw that I was standing in sand. Looking all around me, I found that I was surrounded by sand. To top everything off, a sandstorm was swirling furiously around us.

"Well..." I thought to myself. "We've made it to the Badlands..."