The stench of ozone and her own charred flesh makes it almost impossible for Koschei to breath. Well, that and the sucking wound in her chest that's collapsed one of her lungs.

 

Ooh, that's going to leave a scar.

 

"Ha!" Socrates crows gloatingly from his position on the shattered dais, more toad than froglike in the haze and gloom. "Take that you overbearing witch! You treacherous cur! You stinking Irish republican!"

 

Come on sweetie. What's taking so long? "Took you long enough, Froggie," she gasps, feeling her body trying to reluctantly heal itself. The effort is stalled by another lightning bolt slamming her already crumpled body across the ancient stone floor.

 

"The arrogance! The unmitigated gall to think a mere slip of a woman like you could possibly best me!" he continues his diatribe, badly bruised testicles forcing him to waddle towards her. "I outlasted and out thought a god made flesh!" A miasma of energy once more forms around his podgy hands. "I am the embodiment of Th-!"

 

A spine chilling CRACK echoes through the chamber, louder and more terrible than a thunder clap.

 

"Wha-?"

 

"You... were... the em... embodiment..."she wheezes, drooling blood. "Hope... you... swim..."

 

The last thing she's aware of before she dies is an inarticulate scream of frustration, rage and fear as Socrates runs to the inner sanctum.

 

 

 

* * *

 

The chamber, once so full of potency, feels as empty and mundane now as the rest of Thule. The reason for that lies in the shattered form of the lodestone, a single cruciform - indeed almost dagger-like - fracture marring the entirety of its surface. At the fracture's centre is a stake giving off the unmistakeable glow of pure refined Andrium.

 

"What have you done?" Socrates demands of the woman he's just spent half an hour killing, clutching his head in horrified disbelief.

 

"Knobbled you for a start," the girl in the corner answers smugly with an Australian accent.

 

He turns with a violent start. Leaning against a sledgehammer almost as tall as she is, the girl doesn't look old enough to be out of school; her eyes, though, tell a different story. Eyes he finds disturbingly familiar but can't place... No matter. He snarls an incantation and flings a gesture in her direction.

 

Absolutely nothing happens.

 

"Oops," the girl smirks. "Mum said that'd happen."

 

"Who?" he asks uncomprehendingly.

 

"My mum. Ash O'Connor. Lots of people call her Koschei."

 

"Oh, her," he spits contemptuously. "I killed her. And you're next."

 

"I don't think so," she counters, casually pulling off her insulated gloves."

 

"I've taken enough lives, little girl, to known when I've killed someone," he blusters, disturbed both by her complete calm and the sudden sense of emptiness inside him. Well, if I can't blast her, I'll just have to shoot her.

 

"Is there a body?" she asks witheringly.

 

"Not any more," he lies smoothly.

 

The confident look on the girl's face falters, and a surge of cruel confidence fills him. "Burnt beyond all recognition!" Well it will be after I kill you. "When I triumph over the vulgar arrogance of lesser beings, the world knows it!"

 

"You're lying."

 

"Feel free to look," he offers, standing aside. She looks at him, to the doorway, to him, then to the doorway one last time before tearing through it.

 

All too easy. Lamenting the loss of his beloved De Lisle on the island above, he pulls a Browning HP from the concealed holster on the back of his belt and prepares to shoot her squarely in the back.

 

Something akin to a jackhammer slams into the back of his head. Twisting as he falls to the ground, he catches sight of a tall humanoid figure looming over him, broad blunt features and coldly inhuman surveying him impassively as power hands reach down and seize him by the arms. The golem lifts him effortlessly into the air.

 

"You lied to me!" the girl exclaims accusingly.

 

"You fell for it," he sneers. "She's still dead."

 

"You wish, you... Arnold, put him down."

 

The golem silently sets him down.

 

"That's better," he says, turning to face her, all the while desperately trying to calculate his escape. If I can just grab my gun...

 

"Now rip his bloody arms off. Slowly."

 

"What? No!"

 

"No one kills my Mum and gets away with it. Especially not a fat ugly little excuse of a man like you."

 

Something inhuman flares briefly into life behind those frightening green eyes. And he finally remembers where he's seen them before.

 

"You can't be h-- Argghhhhhhhhhhh!"

 

Once he starts screaming, he doesn't stop. Not until the very end.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Caitlyn again rubs ineffectually at the blood that's soaked into what only that morning had been a brand new top.

 

Who'd have thought it would have sprayed so much?

 

"I assume he and the lode stone are dead," her mum asks hoarsely.

 

"Very."

 

"Good. Give your mother a hand up."

 

Her mum swears terribly as Caitlyn helps her into a sitting position, then spends a moment looking at the burns that still glisten wetly in the flickering torch light. "I should be in a lot more pain than I am."

 

"You're full of morphine that's just kicking in. Building a med kit into my pet golem seems to have paid off. There doesn't seem to be anything broken except your ribs, and I couldn't really splint them."

 

"Speaking of Arnold, where is he?"

 

"Collecting the bodies and taking them back to the door."

 

"Bodies?"

 

"We came across a couple of Sinclair's archaeologists on the way in, so we killed them in case."

 

"Cleanly?"

 

"We didn't have time to hang around..."

 

"Caitlyn!"

 

She rolls her eyes. Any other mother would be horrified that their daughter would casually kill people who didn't present any sort of immediate threat, but hers? Only that the kills were swift.

 

"Of course they were clean."

 

"So all that blood is Socrates'?"

 

"Um, yes?" She tenses, awaiting the inevitable disapproval at the obvious - and quite satisfying - sadism so much blood speaks so loudly to.

 

"Good. Little toad had it coming. Here, help me up."

 

More swearing.

 

"You're getting sloppy, you know that?" she teases.

 

"Watch it," her mum cusses. "Besides, I was fighting the power of the whole damn island, not just the psychotic professor it was being channelled through. I'm surprised I lasted as long as I did. It was a bloody good thing Froggie didn't realise I'd snuck a look at his journal and knew about his secret little power source."

 

"We should have just killed him in his sleep."

 

"But we wouldn't have gotten this..." Fumbling in her probably only intact pocket, her mother pulls out a large ornate metal key. "And that lodestone would have just been left for someone else to find and tap into. With all his attention on me, I was hoping any defences it may have had would be sufficiently weakened for you to destroy it, and it looks like I was right."

 

"You might have mentioned the 'any defences' bit."

 

"I thought I did."

 

"No."

 

"Hmm, must be getting sloppy."

 

"I'm laughing really hard on the inside, mum, honest. So what are we going to do with this place?"

 

"Dunno. I guess the Guardians would probably wet themselves over being given access to what's left here, and just even archaeologically speaking all this is fairly priceless..."

 

"You want to blow it up!"

 

"The idea had occurred to me. I trust the Guardians even less than the Assassins at the moment, mostly because a fair few of them who are now dead themselves wanted to kill you, and I don't want them to know I have this key. Still, mending bridges does have a certain appeal of long term survival to it."

 

The reminder of the last few extraordinary years of her short life cause Caitlyn to become sombre, and she appreciates her mum not intruding on it.

 

"It might make a useful back-up to the Monolith," she says when they reach the "surface" of the submerged island, the flickering of the lodestone chamber's clandestine torchlight replaced by the brighter light of the few arc lamps the vicious mystical duel hadn't destroyed. "Your friend Cathayan told me about Fade's offer, and I mean, look at the trouble we had to get into to get here."

 

"True enough, sweetie. It was a miracle the Hand found Thule in the first place; with the lodestone gone, it should be even harder."

 

"Especially if we can bump off anyone else who might know about it. There can't be that many left."

 

"You'll excuse me if I spend a week or so crying in pain getting over this little adventure first," her mum smiles grimly, noticeably not dismissing either suggestion.

 

Parents can be so easily to manipulate sometimes, especially when they're already leaning towards where you want to go.

 

---
Fin