Chaos Lives in Everything - 38. Chapter 38

At the end of the stairs was a large room that very well could have been a study complete with a wooden desk, a fire place, and two tall book shelves that touched the ceiling full of thick leather bound volumes. The floor was of stone. The most curious thing in the room however was the pedestal standing in the very center of the room. Sitting squarely on top of the vial was a small vial made of crystal. It was to this pedestal that Samhein went to. He picked the vial up gently almost lovingly and studied it. Skold simply watched and waited.

“Did you ever wonder how Paladin engineered the Black Death?” Samhein asked; when Skold did not answer Samhein passed the black vial to him and continued. “I will do my best to explain. As you know, on the evolutionary chain, humans are our cousins just as the apes are theirs. But we never stopped to think who came before us for evolution is constantly at work, changing things, changing our genetics.”

“I don’t understand what you’re getting at,” Skold said. He looked down at the vial, turning it over and over in his hand. Inside the vial was a black liquid that very much resembled the Black Death.

Samhein waggled a finger at Skold almost teasingly. “Patience, Skold. What I’m about to tell you is information that you will not be able to find in any book. This is something that very few fae today know. Anyway, where was I. Yes, moving on. What I’m trying to say is that just as the mortals are inferior-we elves are the closest to humans genetically-to us we are inferior to our cousins.”

“You’re saying that we come from something else?”

Paladin nodded. “And you hold the proof in your hands. That is the blood of an Atnncei, which in the human tongue means Ancient. Before us they walked the earth, in fact they created it.”

Skold shook his head. “It was the spirits of Vahalla that created the earth, that created us.”

“Then who do you think created Vahalla my dear friend? The spirits walked the earth as we once did. They once lived and breathed as you and I are breathing right now. Who do you think created them? Almost everything in this world comes from something, was created by something. But all things come from the Atnnceis. In the end it is them that we should be worshipping, not the spirits of Vahalla.”

“So if the Atnnceis roamed the earth as we once did and they created us then what happened to us.”

“Most of them exist outside of time and space in the cosmos. I imagine like the spirits of Vahalla they are beings of energy without form. I imagine that like most children do with their parents, we revolted against them, killed them, banished them. There are seven Atnnceis that I know of. Crrtea, Sneodiutc, Cshoa, Iegcnnor, Peecsntail, Gerca, and Ksinsden.”

Creator, Seduction, Cshoa, Ignorance, Pestilance, Grace, Kindness.

“How do you know all of this?” Skold asked.

“How do you think? It was Paladin and I that discovered it, quite by accident of course. We were over in Scotland. I guess you could say we were taking a vacation. It was in the Ben Nevis mountains that we discovered a cave that led deep underground, beneath the mountain into the earth. That was where we found the tomb of Peecsntail. His body lays there even now, somehow preserved. He was quite a gruesome creature as most fae are.”

“Pestilance.”

“Yes. Paladin and I made sure that the cave was hidden so that no one can ever find it. In your hand you hold a vial of Peecsntail’s blood. It is from that blood that the Black Death comes from. It is that blood that causes terrible mutations much like the ones you saw in Bane’s lair.”

Skold put the vial back on the pedestal. He turned to Samhein. “And you want to unleash this upon the world again, finish Paladin’s work. Why?”

Samhein’s face turned to ice. “There is no greater motive than revenge. I guess you could say that it is my gift to you. I remember the day the war ended, the day that you and your army of the undead invaded Paladin’s castle. I remember holding his severed head in my hands and crying my first tears. You killed the only being that I have ever been capable of loving. You only have yourself to blame for what happens tonight.”

“What is going to happen?” Skold asked.

“As we speak an army of my creations are heading for the city right now and when they do innocents will be slaughtered and your beloved city will go up in flames. While that is happening I will be off to Romania to unleash the Black Plague upon the world.” Samhein’s red eyes burned with fury. “Oh yes, Skold, yet again chaos and death will rule the world and I do it all for my lover Paladin.”

“You think so?” Skold said, arching an eyebrow. “Well I think not.”

Above them the sound of gun fire and shouting started. Paladin looked up, eyes wide with alarm. He looked back at Skold, glaring.

“Did you think that I would be stupid enough to come on my own?” Skold said. With that he raised his gun. But before he could fire Paladin lashed out and knocked the gun from his hand. With another kick he sent Skold flying across the room. Skold’s back slammed into one of the bookshelves. The bookshelf groaned once, tipped over, and fell on top of Skold raining a shower of books on top of him. The shelf pinned him to the ground. He watched as Samhein fled up the staircase, disappearing out of sight.

Skold wiggled out from underneath the shelf and went over to the pedestal. There the crystal vial was. In his haste to escape Samhein had left it. Skold stowed it away in his jacket pocket; it would be perfect for evidence when it was time for him to go to trial.

The reports of gunfire and shouts became louder as he ran up the steps. The bookshelf that led from the passageway to the library was still open. To his right he could see Dom, Candestine, and Reynold. They had taken cover behind a bookshelf that was disintergrating under heavy gunfire. Six of Samhein’s couriers stood in the doorway of the library, armed with assault rifles. Hundreds of bullets hissed through the air with each second.

Skold unpinned a grenade and rolled it in their direction. Samhein’s couriers were so preoccupied with the others that they hadn’t noticed Skold or the grenade. The explosion threw them in every which direction, severing arms and legs. Skold did not have time to make sure that Dom and the others were okay, not if he had any chance at catching up to Samhein.

He bolted out of the staircase and made way for the staircase that led to the parlor. Several bodies lay on the ground. Two or three of them were of Reynold’s men. Somewhere inside of him Skold felt a sense of guilt that he had never felt before. These men had given their lives for a greater cause. They had families and friends, loved ones that they would never see again. How was it that he was just feeling this way now?

To take any life in general was easy, whether it was fae or human. Killing for Skold was as easy as breathing air. No matter what change of heart he might have it would always come natural to him. Before this moment human life had always seemed so trivial because it was so short. Humans did not live for centuries. Their lives could be snuffed out at any moment like the flame of a candle snuffed out by a weak gust of wind. It was that very thing that made human life suddenly have so much meaning. These men and women sacraficed their short lives and what little they had so that others could live. If only I had realized this before, Skold thought. Perhaps I would have made different choices. Perhaps I would have chosen a different path.

Before him an elf was advancing towards a fallen man. The man was still alive but his right leg had almost been torn completely off. His face was pallid. He had no way of defending himself. Skold came up from behind the elf and snapped his neck with a single twist of his hands. The elf collapsed to the ground.

Skold knelt down before the man just as Dom, Candestine, and Reynolds stormed out of the library.

“Reynolds, this man needs medical attention!”

“Oh God.” Reynolds joined Skold in a kneeling position. “Bently what happened?”

Bentley responded with a groan.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Skold said.

“Yes thank you for telling me what I already know Captain Obvious,” Reynolds snapped. He pulled out a large wad of bandages and started wrapping up Bentley’s leg. Already blood was starting to seep through the bandages. “Everything’s going to be okay, Bentley. Don’t worry, you’re going to be okay.”

Skold decided that Bently was better in Reynolds’ hand. He ran outside into the cold night. On the lawn, just yards away, a helicopter hovered in the air. Samhein was pulling himself up a rope. One of his men reached out and helped him climb aboard. He looked down once at Skold, sneered, and then the helicopter soared higher into the air and disappeared over the canopy of trees.

Skold turned to Dom and Candestine.

“We have to get back to the city,” he said. “Now.”