Umbral Gate Part V

“I noticed, from my vantage point crouched on the floor, that the stickspinners kept the sticks guarding their heads and upper body, but not their feet and ankles. Elsbeth’s goons most likely couldn’t notice this due to their proximity. I stood and sidled alongside Skirt’s foe. The sticks shifted slightly to protect the side I was on. I feigned a lunge, dropped down to my knee while delivering a brutal kick to the spinner’s foot. I was pummeled several times by the sticks: a few blows to the head and a hard blow against my ribs, shattering two of them. The sticks clattered to the ground though as the spinner stumbled from my kick. Skirt seized the opportunity and jabbed the spinner twice in the chest, pounded him in the face once and finished him with a powerful roundhouse kick that knocked him into the wall, busting the drywall and causing the spinner to collapse unconscious.

“I tried to roll out of the way to catch my breath and deal with the pain, I saw the Dame still battling the dragon. The beast had pushed its head inside the skylight and was now using its mouth to attempt to swallow Elsbeth whole. She kept it at bay with her staff, bludgeoning it in the snout and head. With deftness I’ve never seen, Elsbeth rolled backwards to avoid a lunging bite, and came to her feet. She held the staff like a spear, cocked her arm back, and hurled it at the dragon’s head as its mouth smashed into the floor. The staff hit true and penetrated the beast’s skull with a blinding flash of light. It took several frantic seconds for my vision to return to normal to see the result of the blow. Elsbeth moved away from the lifeless dragon, a black ichor oozing forth from the mortal wound. Skirt had stepped alongside Pants and together they were destroying the spinning sticks. Shard of wood flew away with each pounding blow and timed kick. The spinner, seeing he was now outnumbered backed away through the door, his protective sticks fell to the floor and he fled. The goons gave chase.

“The Dame Elsbeth walked over to me and knelt next to me as I attempted to sit up. She told me to stay down as she pulled a cloth from the inside pocket of her coat. Folded in the cloth was some sort of dried herb or something that she made me eat while she held her hands over my torso and chanted what sounded like gibberish. The pain slowly faded.”

“I must have passed out, though. The next thing I can remember was being hauled out of the Warren by two uniformed officers. I spent the night in the hospital and after I filed my report, I was given the chance to resign or being terminated for psychotic disorders. The police did a full sweep of the building and didn’t find anything that backed up my story except for the section of the floor that had caved in.”

Rex stared blankly. “And what happened between when you were with Paragon Security and now?”

Torrance smiled. “I did my own investigation which led me to understand quite a bit about the Umbral Gate and the world on the other side. The gate is a labyrinth, walk it correctly and you are transported to the other side.”

I had to interrupt. There was movement on the monitor. “We’ve got spinners!”

Torrance glanced at the monitor as he stood and stepped to the door. “Arm yourselves but stay near the trailer.”

Torrance stepped out of the trailer and it rocked as it righted itself. We watched him from the trailer door disappear into the building. Rex flipped a few switched and he appeared on a set of monitors. We followed his progress and the progress of two men who seemed to be covered in a haze on the monitor.

“What should we do?” Rex asked in anticipation.

“We sit tight. If they get through, I’ll have to take them out.”

“What do you mean? If Torrance and that Dame can’t stop them, how are you going to do it?”

On the panel that controlled the monitors, there was a small door with a lock. I reached into my shirt and pulled out a key. “The button beneath that hatch is connected to explosive charges that are set throughout the building.”

“Dear god!”

“We cannot allow them to come through.” Rex looked about nervously. “Don’t worry; the charges won’t collapse the building, only seal the exits. We are safe, relatively.”

Torrance walked carefully through the hallways. The spinners approached down a side tunnel. Torrance made a broad sweeping gesture with his arms and his hands glowed blue. As the spinners turned the corner and faced Torrance, Torrance thrust his hands forward and a stream of blue light shot out from both hands, blasting one of the spinners squarely. The spinner flew backward into the wall, but didn’t seem phased by Torrance’s attack.

The second spinner rapidly threw several knives at Torrance. Torrance reacted with extraordinary speed, dodging to the side, and then rolling forward. As he came up to his feet, a long dark staff appeared in his hands.

“There is something else coming,” Rex exclaimed pointing to one of the monitors. I took my eyes off of Torrance’s fight to look at what Rex saw. On the small thirteen inch monitor was a tall skulking man creature. He was so thin his gray skin revealed his freakish skeleton. He wore a long tattered black coat with a red poppy in the lapel. On his head, covering his long yarn like grayish black hair was a battered velvet black top hat with a satin band. Another red poppy stuck out of the black satin band. Four small metal spikes protruded from his sternum, and a chain ran from a ring in his ear to a ring to the side of his bottom lip.