Chapter 11: Monster Cops

Chapter 10

Max

I had a wonderful nights sleep in the spare bedroom, but I was awakened by Julies scream, followed by a thump and the smell of burning wood. I had collapsed on the bed in my clothing, with my backpack still on my back, so I burst out of the room, and ran to where she had been sleeping.

“I’m coming in!” I yelled as I saw Duke running towards me. I kicked in the door. The entire inside of the room was blackened, Julie was huddled in the back left corner, crying, while her bed burned happily. I turned, and then jumped back as I saw Dukes face inches from mine.

“I’ll get some water.” He said, then turned to leave. I walked over to Julie.

“You okay?” I asked as I crouched. Silly question, true, but I had to ask something. She gave me a dirty look.

“Do you make it a habit of announcing your intention to enter, but not waiting for permission?” She asked. Touche.

“I got the water, Julie can you use it to put out the fire?” Duke came in. Julie lifted her hand, palm up, and directed the water to cover the bed, putting out the fire. I helped Julie up.

“I dunno bout you two, but I cannot sleep again for a while.” Julie said. I shrugged, then Duke and I followed her out and down the stairs.

“Oh, there you three are, I was just about to go get you,” said Horrace as we entered the workshop. In the center was an old fashioned carriage that had wings. Yes, wings. The reached across the entire room, from end to end.

“I finished getting this ready for you, and you had better get out of here before the constable comes back.” He indicated a Television screen behind him, where the local News from outside the bubble was playing. It showed a picture of the train we had recently left, burning and dislodged from the railroad tracks.

“...Believed to be caused by a Terrorist attack. Whether the three children who were the only passengers on that segment were the terrorists, or the target of the terrorists, is uncertain. If you see them please call for the proper authorities. Unless otherwise stated we should consider them armed and dangerous.” The reporter was saying. The TV turned off.

“The carriage can fly just about as high as any airplane, and I stocked it with some basic food. Attach your storm spirit to the harness here,” he indicated the harness. “Then get the hell out of my shop.” Then he walked away.

“Horrace is right, we should get out of here,” Duke said. He loaded his bag into the seating area and climbed in. I walked over to the front and brought Thunder out. He whinnied at me and rubbed his head against my chest. I brought out some batteries and held them up to him. He leaned down and chewed on them. The electricity from inside sparked and flowed into his mouth. I tossed the empty batteries into my bag and harnessed him onto the carriage. He snorted in annoyance and pawed at the ground with his hooves.

“Play nice.” I said as I got into the carriage. Julie was sitting across from Duke. The front couch was facing the same direction as the back, but the middle had reigns that had attached themselves to Thunder. I sat down and flicked the reigns. Thunder ran straight at the closed doors. Oops. Julie was screaming something about my being crazy and how she wanted to dunk me in water until I shocked myself to unconsciousness, and Duke was screaming about the door being closed. I closed my eyes, and was prepared to fire a bolt of electricity to blow them open, when they opened on their own, letting us out into the courtyard. The courtyard swarming with old fashioned police armed with clubs and single shot rifles.

Well, I can honestly say I did not expect that.

Thunder slowed down, confused. The normal horses that were bucking and rolling their eyes in fear of my mount.

“Hold! Hold damn you!” Cried Officer Hortense. The officers fought their mounts until they were, mostly, calmed.

“Come out children. We know who thou art.” He said once his own mount stopped rearing and began to prance in place. We stayed inside. “My men and I are armed with weapons that shalt kill thine horse. If they don’t, they shalt undoubtedly destroy thy carriage, and most likely thee as well.” He had a point there. Duke sighed, opened the door and climbed out.

“What do you want Officer Hortense?” One of his men snickered, and was quickly backhanded with a club, flying off his horse with a broken nose.

“Not much from thee, child of the war God. We want something from the Prince of Air and the Princess of the Sea.” Fancy titles and flattery will get you anywhere I suppose. Julie and I got out of the carriage.

“Thy parents cursed us children. The condemned us to this place for eternity. Once we lasted beyond our natural lifespans, we became monsters, like those creatures thou doth hunt. Make thine parents release us, or we shall kill thee.” Officer Hortense explained once he saw we were out of the carriage.

“That’s it?” I asked. Seemed too simple. Must be Ye Old English.

“I don’t think we can officer,” Julie said. Duke slammed his face into his palms. “We have no control over our parents, and no real way to communicate with them.”

“Then thou shalt die.” He said, and raised his pistol. Thankfully I hadn’t been wasting this precious time, and used it to fashion a wall of electricity. What I did not expect was what happened next.

The officers with guns fired upon us while those who did not charged their horses forward. The horses were smart enough not to try anything of the sort, but their riders were rather cruel about trying to get them to move. Duke drew a couple of axes and threw them at some of the gun wielding...opponents? monsters? mortals? This whole bit confused me a whole bunch.

The bullets flew at us and ricocheted off the wall of electricity that I had put up. A couple of the monsters went out in puffs of golden dust, but not enough of them. The ones holding guns dropped their weapons and drew swords, dismounting their frightened horses and charging straight at us. Dukes axes caught two in the chest, and before they died they became some sort of magnetic mine, drawing one or two of their compatriots to them before exploding into dust, taking those that were close with them. The rest ran into the wall, shocking themselves to death. Unfortunately two or three got through.

Officer Hortense got through and swung his sword at me. I dodged easily and summoned Watt. Unfortunately, Hortense was much better at defense than he was at offense. We danced back and forth swinging our weapons to almost no effect against each other. It did give me a chance to look at how the others were doing.

Duke had two axes with long handles out and was spinning them around like those band kids with the flags at high schools. The problem was, they were pretty damn effective. The constant movement kept the two who were trying to take him down at axe length, and allowed him to effectively attack at the same time. One of his opponents was hobbling around missing his leg.

Julie was doing just as good a job, except she had five opponents. She was sliding on the cobblestone ground like it was water and she had a surfboard, dodging attacks and striking back with her two daggers like a snake striking its targets. In the second I was watching she had taken out two and injured the other three, but that was due to their close proximity allowing her moves to work. The remaining three spread out, bleeding out some gold liquid. I turned back to my fight.

Hortense was starting to speed up his attacks, nothing too problematic yet, but I was getting tired. I decided to activate Joules. As soon as I thought about it the gauntlet activated, becoming plated over with Celestial Bronze (as I learned the metal was called). I then called the electricity inherit in it, and a wire-frame version of the gauntlet formed around it, requiring that I held my hand further from my body than it already was. Hortense tried to thrust his blade at me, but I knocked it aside with the wire-frame glove and slashed down with my own sword.

I sliced through his sword arm and into his hip, but not killing blows. He moved back, almost as if the wound in his hip didn’t bother him, and drew a second sword with his left hand. He slashed downwards twice, once from the left and another from the right, and sent a wave of energy in the form of an X towards me. Something in my mind clicked and I brought the charge I had used for the wall into my gauntlet. Then I used it to catch his attack. The wire-frame cracked under the pressure, but I was able to redirect his blast into two of his compatriots who were fighting Julie.

I dashed towards him, dragging the gauntlets extension across the ground momentarily, and our blades met. With our swords crossed this way, neither of us could disengage to use the blade in another fashion. This suited me just fine. I stabbed the gauntlet into his chest, burning the flesh and sending him flying towards Duke. Duke saw the projectile Monster and slammed the blade of one of his axes into Hortense’s chest, right on the wounds. Hortense flew into one of his flunkies, who ended up stabbed by the sword he still carried despite his flying around.

Duke used this moment to spin his axes into his second opponent, destroying him. We turned to help Julie, who had an ice statue of an old fashioned copper filled with glittering gold dust. I deactivated my weapons and sat down heavily on the carriage. Thunder whinnied and tried to get to me, but the harness kept him from moving.

The other horses hadn’t gone anywhere, probably because they were under orders from their previous owners not to. They flapped their wings nervously and tried to keep away from Thunder.

Wait, wings?

On second inspection, every single one of the horses had wings. Now that the Monster cops were destroyed, the harnesses they had forced onto the horses had faded also, and the Pegasus, which is what they were, were able to flap their wings.

“Oh you poor things,” Julie said and walked up to them. They all nuzzled her affectionately and she petted each of their manes.

“You can put Thunder away,” Duke told me. “Pegasus are better for this kind of work, at least as far as we know.” I sighed, got up and unharnessed Thunder. He inspected me with his nose and eyes, and seeing that I was unharmed, nuzzled me again before entering Joules once more. Julie brought two of the pegasus over.

“This,” she indicated one that was pure white, “is Silver, and this is Butter Hooves,” she indicated the second pegasus who was brown and cream colored. “Say hello boys,” she gave us the stink eye, promising so much unpleasantness if we didn’t.

“Hello boys,” Duke and I said dutifully. She frowned.

“You two get inside, I am going to harness these two up, feed them some well deserved treats, and then we can get a move on to Florida.”

Chapter 12