That was the Faustian’s first mistake. Dust grabbed the arm to stop it retracting and fired his other gun into its pale flesh twice. Red sprayed in all directions, covering Dust, and only slivers of muscle remained in his elbow. With a great pull, Dust tore his forearm away and threw it aside. The Faustian howled and his flesh retracted reflexively.
“That is it!” the Faustian roared. He stood up and held his mask with his good hand.
Dust tried to press home his advantage, shot twice at the black-leather bastard, but the bursts bounced off him like pebbles. Dust reloaded and quickly saw why; the Faustian was surrounded by a hell of a lot of magic, so much that even Dust’s other gun was as meagre as… well, a pebble in comparison. This wasn’t like when he’d protected himself from Dust’s sucker-shot. It was something far more visceral and powerful.
“I am sure of nothing but the glory of That Which Sins,” the Faustian screeched, a bleeding form at the centre of a magical maelstrom. “And now I shall convince you of it too.”
He pulled his mask away, revealing a cruel horror where his mouth should be, a configuration of worship Dust had never seen before. Dust supposed there was no end to what one could do to themselves but this self-inflicted cruelty was disgusting, a network of slices and scars, a real sin which extended deep into his face.
From the mess of still-bleeding wounds spewed even more flesh. The Faustian retched and heaved and embraced the mass even as he continued to expel it, rubbing the twitching red meat across his body with one whole arm and what remained of the other. The muscles and skin and hair and oceanic appendages were a form of spell, a solid magic usually reserved for the creation of new life; the Faustian was making himself into an eldritch creature.
To do this alone and with no ceremony he must’ve sacrificed his soul, much as Father Kilkenny had, though this would be purposeful and permanent. Dust’s other gun was useless until the act was complete, more likely to create a blowback deadly to Shadows Fade and Penelope than to stop the spell.
“I have seen this before; he is changing into a dark spirit,” Shadows Fade shouted. “It is a very recent magic.”
He quickly looked back; a blackened Godly Claw had draped herself over Penelope Chalmers and the warrior holding her down to prevent her doing things to her body. The ritual was close to changing Penelope completely.
Dust returned to watching the gathering flesh “What should I expect?”
“A harder fight.”
“Thanks.”
He paced, waited for the Faustian’s transformation to complete. The rest did him good; his muscles had just started to burn from overuse when he’d tore the bastard’s arm off and they got to relax in the slight pause. He stretched and watched the Faustian’s transformation, watched him cover himself in the red mess.
Dust quickly grew bored; the ritual was repetitive now and it would be obvious when it finished. He looked around and saw the Faustian’s dismembered limb; a withered husk, aged flesh which had been assaulted by the vagaries of decades in mere seconds, green fingers with wafer thin skin curled in a death grip. Whatever the Faustian had sold himself for, the deal had included immortality or resistance against time. The standard package then.
There was a soft implosion of magic and a flash of light. The ritual was complete.
The horrible retches stopped and the Faustian rose a new being, something half-man, half-magic. White skin now covered the crimson meat. Tendrils and shifting limbs danced and undulated, vibrating with the heavy thud of his gross, black heart. Pale and lumpy, it looked like piled vomit. Every trace of the Faustian had been subsumed except for silver eyes set into its form and the half-arm which stuck out like a wolf on a dairy farm.
This cruel mess came at him, slithering and running and crawling in equal measure. It was slower than the Faustian but it met Dust’s counters much more capably, lazily knocking his shots away with a swipe of what had once been a hand. When it was within reaching distance, the mass tried to sweep Dust’s feet from under him. Dust jumped over the attack but it spewed a new limb at him whilst he was mid-air and couldn’t dodge. The punch – as good a word as any - struck Dust in the shoulder he’d slid across the room on and the world span until it crashed into him. He skidded along the floor, losing a top layer of skin from his face.
Dust got to his feet, cheeks burning with pain, and tried to meet it again with his other gun. The blow bounced away from its bubbling skin harmlessly. It struck back with two new limbs, punches arcing from opposite directions to sandwich him, crushing his torso like a vice, before it threw him into the air like a toy.
He managed to land on his feet but was immediately kicked on the same spot of his left shoulder again. There was so much power in the attack that his collar bone gave way, snapping with an audible crack. He screamed and was kicked again, knocked to his feet.
Again, this wasn’t going well. He couldn’t believe that such a ritual was common enough that Shadows Fade had recognised it right away; the Badlands had changed much. There would always be people willing to go further than their predecessors, abase themselves further, but he would never have expected something so powerful and reckless. Certainly not that could be instantly summoned, a card one could just play at will.
“Shadows Fade?” he asked as he got to his feet, his voice slurred with wooziness.
“Yes?”
“How did you kill the… one of these?”
“I didn’t. I ran.”
Dust smiled and it hurt like a bitch.
Then the thing was at him again. Dust was more cautious now, chose his moves and didn’t overextend himself so he could study the thing. Dodging, blocking, weaving, he analysed it.
It could grow limbs from anywhere on its body with little effort, scorpion tails and spiked fists and lashing whips. The physical magic that sustained the ritual was what allowed the Faustian to alter its form at will. The transformation wasn’t permanent then; it would last as long as he maintained the magic. And doing so required either a consistent supply, from an artefact or a group of acolytes, or an incredible level of concentration.
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The Faustian tired of sparring and surged at him, curling like a wave. Dust jumped back then rolled aside from the inevitable follow-up, a great clawed foot that would have snapped his neck. He had to use his broken shoulder in the process and stars bloomed before his eyes for just a moment.
Still it came, unrelenting. Dust ducked and hopped, did all he could to avoid getting hit until he knew how to fight the creature. Twice he couldn’t avoid an attack so he struck back with his other gun, lessening the force of the blow slightly but making his whole arm numb. The impact flared the pain in his shoulder the second time and he was nearly blinded by it. Distracted, he took a solid shot to the midriff and felt a rib snap.
Dust staggered back and coughed up blood. His vision blurred. Out of final chances, he had to work something out but couldn’t think with this level of pain.
The pain… That was it, his way of killing it! Dust couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of that. He hopped from one foot to the other as small spikes tried to spear his ankles, then rolled forward on his broken shoulder again to avoid being stabbed in the throat. The world became fuzzy and he nearly bit through his tongue as loose bone dug into his muscles.
The pain and unpleasant taste of blood was worth it; he was near the stump of the Faustian’s arm. Some of the magic-flesh had covered the wound to keep him from bleeding out but it wasn’t enough to protect it. Dust jumped at the Faustian, his other gun raised high, and brought it crashing down on the ragged remains of his arm.
The Faustian roared, his real voice breaking through. Dust didn’t let up, striking the stump again. It tried to loose him but the flesh moved erratically and the sweeping arm missed. Dust reached back, shouted out his pain and fury and hatred for the Faustian and everything it represented, and smashed the weak spot a third time. This time, the spells on his other gun broke through the magic flesh and shredded what was left of that arm.
The Faustian screeched, this time in terror. His concentration was irrevocably broken by the blow and it knew what was coming; the magic sustaining its new form left his control and chose destruction, exploding with the force of dynamite. Dust was knocked back, his shirt and half his chest burned away instantly. He landed on his left side, spearing his collar bone out through his skin and punishing him as only Resistance could match.
Tears, actual tears, formed in his eyes as he lay in a crumpled mess and Dust wasn’t too proud to actually cry at the pain. His ears rang from the explosion and his skin burned. He was a mess.
After some time, his body righted itself as it always would; his muscles twitched and pulled the bones back together and then fused like molten metal. His skin grew back too, though from his other burns he knew it would be gnarled like bark, and each nerve within it squealed and complained, swallowing him. Dust swore and screamed all the while, mindless in a world of suffering.
Recovery hurt more than injury when you weren’t using your own power, an old and inescapable law of magic.
The torment didn’t last forever. Eventually, it was done. Dust sat up. His vision swam and his ears rang. Tears ran down his craggy cheeks. He looked over to where the Faustian had been; all that remained were his bones and dark ash. The risk of death was the price someone paid for that powerful a spell. That and the permanent loss of his soul, the guarantee he couldn’t be brought back by any magician or even god.
“You did it,” Shadows Fade said. She sounded distant and underwater.
He turned to her and nodded. “I was lucky.”
“There is no luck when you serve Resistance.”
Dust merely stood and took a deep breath.
“You should hurry. I cannot hold her back much longer.”
One look at Penelope Chalmers and he understood the warrior’s urgency; it was only Shadows Fade’s will that held back whatever the ritual had introduced into the girl’s system and that was at its breaking point. He had to extract the corruption, the very essence of That Which Sins, now or she would become a Vessel.
“No pressure,” Dust said as he laid his hands on Penelope, half-naked and drained but determined to see this through.
