Page 72 of The Malevolent Eight

On cue, the upper floors of the stone fortress collapsed under their own weight, sending stone chips and mortar flying in all directions. I couldn’t hear the screams of the wonderists previously known as the Unforgettable Eight, although a couple might’ve survived; it’s pretty hard to kill a cosmist without first destroying their conscious minds. The Pandoral was probably still alive too.

‘Where do you stand on taking advantage of unconscious women?’ the Spellslinger asked me.

I turned and saw that she was tilting like one of the fortress towers currently in the process of falling. She blinked her eyes several times, trying to focus on me.

‘I’ve never taken a public position on the issue, but I’m generally opposed to rape,’ I replied.

‘Good,’ she murmured. ‘That’s good.’

Then she passed out and I was left standing there in filthy, stinking rags with an unconscious woman at my feet who’d made it painfully clear on a number of occasions that she was going to bring me to my inevitable doom and destroy any chance I had of protecting the Mortal realm from an endless war between the Aurorals and Infernals. One had to assume that said prophecy would be null and void if I knelt down and– gently, caringly– strangled her to death.

Chapter 40

Heroic Murder

Murder gets a bad rep, but if you ask me, homicide is the quintessential act of heroism. It’s all right there in the sagas: how does the hero save the world? By killing the evil king, slaying the mighty dragon, defenestrating the dastardly tyrant.

Choking the unconscious young mother to death.

It’s true, there are no sagas I know of with that particular ending recited to enraptured children at bedtime, but that only meant there was an opening for me to be immortalised in legend.

I know, I know: you’re thinking that good guys don’t murder innocent mothers doing whatever they must to rescue a child from a horrific plane of existence. But the world had plenty of good guys walking aroundnotmurdering people and things had still gone to shit. What the world needed now wasn’t a good guy. It neededa hero.

‘She’s going to destroy us all,’ I reminded my friends as I lugged the incapacitated Spellslinger over my shoulder.

They weren’t there, of course. Best I could tell, the portalist working for the Pandoral had transported me a good two hundred miles from that roadside temple where I’d been kidnapped. Still, you spend enough time with crazy people and eventually you can’t help but hear their voices at inopportune moments.

‘We can’t know that for certain,’ Galass said disapprovingly, then twisted the knife a little deeper. ‘You’re the one who’s always defying the inevitable, Cade. Are you saying now of all times you’re becoming a believer in destiny?’

‘Kill the bitch,’ Corrigan said, scratching his balls. In my imaginings, he’s always scratching his balls. Actually, that’s not just in my imagination.

‘Nay, Brother Cade, nay,’ declared Aradeus. ‘Such an atrocity cannot be countenanced, no matter the justification!’

‘You can’t stop him, moron,’ Alice reminded the rat mage. ‘Cade is only imagining you. He’s mostly hallucinating due to his prolonged torture. And because he’s morally weak.’

‘You do appear rather unwell, child,’ Shame observed in that motherly tone that suggested her notion of motherhood would totally involve smothering the baby to cure the colic. Angelics really don’t understand parenthood.

Aradeus, however, followed an entirely more irritating moral compass. Drawing his imaginary rapier with a flourish he declared, ‘Whether my sword arm be flesh or mere stuff of dreams, nevertheless shall my blade strike down any who would commit black bloody murder! Have at you, Cade– I say, have at you!’

I stumbled, twisting my own ankle to avoid dropping Eliva’ren to the dusty ground. The pain was oddly refreshing, if only because it banished the annoying image of Aradeus from my mind.

‘Yeah, rat mages are moralising pains in the arse sometimes,’ Corrigan said sympathetically. ‘Now, just gently set the woman down on the ground, straddle her, in case she wakes up, and choke the life out of her before she comes to her senses and obliterates the fucking universe!’

It was a hazy late afternoon, the sun slowly setting behind the hills on the horizon. I could see houses up ahead, which was good because I was in dire need of proper food, a bath and a decent bed. Unfortunately, it also meant I was running out of time to either be a proper hero or a pathetic good guy who put his moral squeamishness above the lives of everyone else.

‘Don’t do it,’ Galass warned. ‘I’ll never speak to you again if you do something this awful, Cade. It’s not just me and Aradeus, either. Corrigan will despise you for doing this, no matter how tough he talks. Shame and Alice might seem distant, but they can only be that way because they trust you to keep us on the right path. There won’t be a Malevolent Seven if you murder that woman, Cade, because none of us will be able to look at you ever again.’

‘You think I don’t know that?’ I asked, stopping to stand there with my ankle aching and my entire body ready to collapse, just like the fortress we’d left behind. Also, because there was the hallucination of a kangaroo standing in my way.

‘Go on,’ I told Temper, ‘say “motherfucker” like it’s supposed to mean something.’

The illusory vampire kangaroo opened its mouth, then coughed, bringing a paw briefly to his muzzle before trying again. ‘Actually, Cade,’ the kangaroo began, ‘what you’re facing is a far more complex philosophical conundrum than you believe. Scholars of ethics refer to your dilemma as “The Horse and Cart Problem”.’

‘Why are you talking like that?’ I asked.

Temper smiled tolerantly, which is unnerving when the smile in question is formed by a mouth full of fangs belonging to a creature who drinks blood and has poor dental hygiene. ‘Oh, Cade. Do you expect me to just say “motherfucker” over and over? It’s quaint, but as you’re imagining me for the purpose of achieving a decision on what course of action to take, isn’t it more useful for us to have a proper conversation?’

‘No, I meant the accent. I’ve never heard it before. You sound halfway between some poncey foreign nobleman and an inebriated fishmonger.’

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