Jake's Story chapter 19

Sorry for the delay! I had to run errands today and I'm still working on Delvers LLC 5.

This scene needed to be born, though.

So fair warning, this chapter is pretty intense.  It's also really important for Jake's journey.

You'll see. :)


Also, just for Patreon patrons, I'm going to write a short chapter between 19 and 20 from a different POV that won't be in the book, and I won't be putting on Royal Road.

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Jake briefly recapped everything he’d reasoned about the situation.

Alright, he thought.  This thing thinks I’m a powerful, evil mage, maybe even a god’s champion.  Hell, it’s probably a champion.  It is most likely working for Tlaloc, the god responsible for the disaster and enslavement of most of Mexico in my past.  The real reason it isn’t attacking me is likely because it doesn’t want to damage the spell working on the walls.  Jake had noticed the glowing lines behind him immediately.  They actually ran past the couch he’d been hiding behind, so it had likely been pushed around a few times as the muttering lunatic worked. This meant the spell was in the line of fire if the doll opened fire, magically speaking.

Jake continued thinking, Since it doesn’t believe I’m here ignorantly, it must think I’m after information or to sabotage.  I haven’t actually attacked the working, though, and I obviously could, so it must think I’m either afraid, or only after information.  Maybe I can use that.

In fact, it must be sure that I came in here for information.  If I’d only wanted to destroy the working and disrupt this ceremony, I could have burned down the building.  After all, it thinks I’m an evil god’s errand boy.  That would mean I wouldn't give a shit about killing the sacrifices or handful of people that are still hiding around here.  No, wait!  Actually, maybe it thinks I’m here for personal reasons!  I am way, way more powerful than most other monsters running around so far after Purple Rain, just like it is.  Yeah, that might be it.

His mind whirred as his plan began to take more solid shape.  I know through Morrigan that evil gods work against each other, and their champions probably do, too.  This thing believes it is more powerful than me, and likely is, but it’s cautious and doesn’t want the working to fail.  It’s obviously here as a facilitator or bodyguard.  Maybe it’ll be punished if this fissure witch isn’t born.

Jake could remember how everything had played out in Mexico, how vampire hell had come to earth.  He thought, I can make a guess about why this fissure witch is being made.  The portal hasn’t been opened yet and they need to build the troops up first.

So again, why is the doll talking to me?  The answer hit him almost immediately after he’d organized his thoughts.  To stall for time. Definitely.

Jake mentally nodded.  He’d been a mage for a while in his past life, and he was pretty sure the working was almost finished.  So the doll will probably go balls out and try to destroy me after the fissure witch is born.  But it believes I’m here remotely, and likely not in any absolute mortal peril.  That’s interesting.  Since I’ve already seen the working, now the doll’s objective is probably to allow the drawing man time to finish becoming a fissure witch.  Meanwhile, I’m just standing here talking, just like the doll is, and it must think I am aware it’s stalling...Alright.  I know what to do.  Project sucker punch.

Now that Jake thought he had fully grasped the situation, he asked, “So you will not answer any questions?”

“Of course not.”

“Too bad.  But I had to ask, though.  You know how it is.”  Jake shrugged, which had to look very strange for a shadow ghoul to do.  He was reminded that this doll-thing had no idea what kind of monster he actually was, though. it couldn’t.  That had to be useful, too.

“Perhaps,” said the doll.  Jake noticed how it hadn’t placed itself between him and the chantin witch-to-be.  It seemed more concerned about the spell than the caster.  Jake through he might understand why.  Tthe chanting cultists had a glowing magic circle on the floor, and Jake remembered the burned corpses of people that had been found near the birthplace of witches.

He nodded, and then he committed, acting on all of his assumptions and hoping he wasn’t about to be proven very, very wrong.  “Perhaps we can make a deal.” Jake stood casually, like he negotiated with animated dolls in sacrificial apartments every day.

“A deal?” the doll made a gesture with one cold, unliving hand.  Its dress fluttered in a nonexistent wind.

“Yes.  Perhaps you can give me a taste of some of the innocent blood I smell.”  Jake flared his nostrils.  “It has been flavored with all of this power, too.  I am sure you know how rare such a thing is, at least to find such a thing steeped in energies other than your own.”  Jake silently thanked his past self for all of his magical studies.  He was spouting straight bullshit right now, but it was close enough to how some secret, evil magic might really work that the doll might believe that his motivation for coming, or at least for saying, had been selifsh.  This entire plan hinged on whether the doll really couldn’t figure out which dark god it thought he was in service to, how far it was willing to go to protect the magic working,and how much longer it would be before it was complete.  If Jake didn’t have time, he was likely going to be fighting a brand new fissure witch and whatever the hell this doll was any second.

“Why would I do that?”

“I am very clumsy,” said Jake, “especially while using this creature’s body. It would be a shame to accidentally have an accident and damage these walls, wouldn’t it?”

“That would be very...unwise.”

“I agree.  Definitely unwise, so we should avoid it at all costs, right?  I am sure if I were to get a taste of some delicious innocent blood, it would help me keep my focus.”  Jake smiled, showing all of his sharp teeth.  Inside, he felt fairly proud of his acting.  He was actually basing his performance off of a necromancer he’d killed with his first adventuring team.  The man had been as evil as the day was long, but he’d had a certain...style.  Like a Bond villain.

The doll’s eyes dimmed, perhaps in thought.  Finally it said, “Your threats have ensured that I will do my best to burn your soul, or whatever you have in place of it one day, but I can accommodate you now.  Two chattel have died, but there are two left.  You may do what you want with one of them.”

“I understand,” said Jake.  He wasn’t sure how formal his agreement had been or if it could be magically binding in any way, but he crossed his fingers behind his back just in case.  No tingles or other strange sensation touched him, so it had likely been unnecessary.

“Come,” said the doll.  It turned and walked deeper into the dark apartment.

Jake followed, and noticed again how the doll didn’t seem particularly worried about the chanting man, the would-be fissure witch.  This was interesting, and confirmed some things for Jake.  First, like he’d reasoned before, the doll was not worried about the man’s safety.  Second, it assumed Jake would understand this.  And as Jake passed, the man didn’t even glance at Jake, just kept writing in blood on the glowing wall.

As the doll led the way down the hall, Jake was tempted to ask its name, but decided not to.  Names were a big deal in the supernatural world, and he’d noticed that the doll hadn’t asked his name, either.  There was a chance that not asking might seem suspicious, but it might be even more suspicious if he did.

The hallway walls had been completely covered in glowing spell script.  Evil energy permeated the air.  If Jake had still been a mage, the pressure of the surrounding magical miasma would not have allowed him to cast a single spell, or even start one.  Now that he was closer, his magical sight let him see the defensive barriers around the doll’s body in detail.  They were good.

About halfway down the hall, Jake cycled his cultivation base and used his life sensing ability, experimenting on a hunch.  His theory was correct.  This close to the doll, he could actually sense where the mage controlling it had attached a soul point.  It was a dark, ugly mark, but still glowed with a tiny hint of life.

Jake wasted no time.  He drew his saber, applied Mercurial Lunar Dao Polishing, and slashed the glimmering blade precisely at the point he’d identified.

The doll’s defenses offered some resistance, but Jake had abandoned magic in his first life for Cultivation precisely because the energy it afforded was so much more potent.  For instance, flash step could penetrate right through most magical barriers, and he’d assumed Mercurial Lunar Dao Polishing, a stronger, deeper technique, would allow his blade to do the same.

It turned out he was right.

As Jake’s saber sheared through the doll’s arm, precisely severing the mystic link, it screamed.  For just a moment, a giant shadow loomed in the hallway, a hulking monstrosity behind the doll.  It turned and glared at Jake with three baleful eyes full of violent promise before it faded and the doll collapsed.

Jake didn’t relax.  He’d been able to effectively sucker punch the evil mage’s puppet using a few tricks.  Due tp the situation, the doll hadn’t expected an attack.  After all, it had assumed that Jake would be after personal profit, or working in his imaginary master’s interests.  And it had also assumed he was a mage, and a mage would have been at a disadvantage in that hallway.  Turning its back to him had likely been done on purpose, but it hadn’t known he was a cultivator.  It might not have even know that daoists existed.

So the doll was down now, just a creepy looking lump on the floor.  But Jake still wasn’t dumb enough to let his guard down.

He spun his cultivation base and concentrated, searching the rest of the apartment with his senses.  From the outside, it’d been hard to tell, but now he was sure.  The doll had been telling the truth about the remaining human lives. But Jake sensed something else, too.

The apartment wasn’t very large and the hallway was narrow.  His saber had been great as an ambush weapon from behind, but now Jake put it away.  He could feel something behind the door at the end of the hall, maybe a bathroom.  Suddenly he was painfully aware that the chanting, painting cultist’s circle was almost directly behind him.

If he were to be pushed into it, that would be bad.

Jake rotated his neck and loosened his shoulders before taking a few more steps forward.  And predictably, the door at the end of the hallway exploded.  Jake barely got a glimpse of burning purple eyes before a creature was almost on top of him.

But Jake was not human anymore.  He was far stronger than he had been in his past life, stronger than any of the Grasshopper Mice.  Now he was a shadow ghoul, and the vampire rushing at him was outclassed.

Jake was at least a low C-rank monster.  Basic vampires were E-rank rank, or maybe very low D-rank.

Of course, there were two of them, which made things a little more interesting.

Jake didn’t retreat, he stepped forward.  As the first vampire screached and reached with clawed hands for Jake’s face and neck, he snapped his rigid hands out to pop the creature’s arms wide.  Then as it continued forward to bite him, Jake raised one arm, savagely cracking the creature in the jaw with an elbow.

And as the vampire stumbled back, Jake lunged forward to bite its throat.  The move wasn’t something he really had to think about.  It was instinctive now.  He tore the other monster’s throat out with a savage yank of his head and savagely kicked it back down the hallway where it collided with its fellow.

Then he spit and pulled a revolver out of his storage ring.  He aimed and unloaded four .38 Special +P rounds into the two thrashing monsters as they practically tore at each, both tangled and trying to rise.

Jake’s bullets slammed into the two creatures, penetrating both.  The surrounding apartments had been emptied.  If he overpenetrated downward, it wouldn’t hit innocents...hopefully.

He studied the vampires as he moved forward to end things.  They were definitely both very low ranking. Each of them sort of looked like a cross between a zombie, a ghoul, and a human, but with some reptilian facial features.  Jake had only seen a vampire once in his previous lifetime, and it hadn’t been alive.  They were proving just as hard to kill as he’d heard.

The one he’d mauled was bleeding heavily from multiple wounds, but was also still struggling to get up.  It would have already if not for the other one.

Jake knew mundane wounds would eventually put down a vampire for good, but it could take a while without cutting their heads off, and he didn’t want to get that close quiet yet.  The things were designed to last through damage so they could kill, drink blood, and heal themselves.  Most of their mythical weaknesses were grounded in reality.  Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to make any stakes and didn’t have garlic, but Jake smiled as he pulled a small bottle of holy water out of his storage ring.  It was one of three he’d swiped from his parents’ house before he’d left--they’d had it left over from something at church.  Part of him was curious whether it was real, but he decided to give it a shot anyway.  So after he carefully took the lid off, he threw the whole thing on the struggling vampires.

Both creatures had been hissing and spitting, but the moment the water touched, they screamed--a terrible, bone-vibrating sound.  Their efforts to get up became frantic.  One of them, the unbitten one, actually managed, running at Jake on all fours, but it was blind in agony and didn’t even dodge as Jake planted his heel in its face.

Bones crunched, and the thing flew down the hallway.  Where the holy water had sprayed the walls, the evil energy flowing through the glowing script actually recoiled away.  It felt like the entire apartment trembled before the script seemed to push through again, slowly going back to how it had looked before.

The vampires moaned as they died, but Jake didn’t believe in leaving things to chance.  He wanted to make sure the nasty things were down for good.  He drew his saber again and used powerful, economical motions to cut the creatures’ heads off.

Then he hesitated.  Should he rescue the captives now, or kill the cultist?  His original plan had been to rescue the children first, but if he had to fight a fissure witch in the next few minutes, he likely wouldn’t be able to protect them.  If he died or had to escape, they would die.

He turned and deliberately walked towards the chanting cultist after sheathing his saber again.  The walls were beginning to glow brighter, it wasn’t Jake’s imagination.  In fact, the bit of space that the unkempt man was painting on was the last bit of unmarked wall in this part of the apartment.

Jake understood why the doll-thing had been confident.  If Jake attacked the walls directly, it would likely blow up the entire apartment.

The cultists really was well protected, at least from the perspective of cleanly killing him and depowering the room’s magical working.  Jake didn’t dare try to break the circle directly or attack the cultist with holy water, not after seeing what had happened with a few drops had splashed the wall.  If he threw a bottle right in the heart of all this energy, it would create a more violent explosion than attacking the walls would.

Jake squinted and used his mage sight.  The protective circle was laced with incredibly potent energy that Jake recognized now as divine, or maybe demonic.  Either way, it would be suicide for anyone to cross other than attuned creatures that resonated with the specific energy.  Magic would be blocked entirely.  It would also break down and destroy anything unliving and unattuned that crossed it.  Trying to stab the man with a spear would result in a stump of wood.  A thrown knife would burn to smoke.

The doll had assumed Jake was a human mage controlling a monster.  It had most likely believe that Jake’s remote self would be in danger if a dark god were provoked, and the doll hadn’t even considered Jake would try.  But Jake grinned without humor.  There was no need to break the circle, not really.

The most powerful supernatural evils were often arrogant and narrow-sighted.  Jake reloaded his revolves.  The man in the circle seemed to finally register Jake’s presence at the last second, and his eyes widened before Jake emptied the entire cylinder.

The barrier turned the bullets to slag, incinerating them, but the projectiles had been moving at around 900 feet per second.  They’d also only needed to cross a few feet before reaching their target.

With a scream, the man stumbled back, dropping his grisly brush.  Molten lead and copper bullet jacket had painfully peppered his flesh.  The attack hadn’t killed him outright, but had been more than enough to get his attention and break him out of his trance.  He was bleeding and burning in dozens of spots.  The dirty man fell on his ass and rolled completely out of the circle.

Jake was on him in a flash, grabbing a handfull of matted hair and janking the man up to full height.  He could actually see the faint glow of his eyes reflected on the man’s whiskered face.  The cultist cried out in terror, clawed with broken fingernails, and screamed gibberish.  A weak hand batted at Jake’s face, but he just ignored it.  When the man tried to throw a powerless punch, Jake grabbed the disgusting man’s arm and bit all the way through his wrist.  The hand flopped uselessly, and the man screamed louder.

The innocent blood Jake smelled and the two flickering lives he could still feel deeper in the apartment made him furious.  He would have never bit someone’s hand off in his past life, but he was beginning to accept the fact he was a monster now.  And who better to fight monsters than a monster?

Jake regarded the snivelling man with a sneer.  Then he slowly turned as the sinister light in the apartment grew brighter and he felt something manifesting in the circle.  The man gibbered and clawed at his eyes with his remaining hand, continuing to scream in a language Jake had never heard before.  Jake watched the circle warily and casually hit his captive in the head hard enough to daze him.

In seconds, Jake was staring at a huge, horrifying face that filled the entire circle the cultist had just been working in.  Goggle eyes filled with malice sat above a fanged mouth, and Jake felt an incredible amount of pressure, even from a tiny sending like this that had been contained in a magic circle.  Jake kept a strong front, but every fiber of his being recoiled.  He felt extremely grateful that the evil energy in the apartment itself apparently hadn’t been strong enough for the god to manifest in.

The entire room was full of the stench of burning rubber.

“Let go of my servant,” growled the god.  “Do as I command and you will be rewarded.  Disobey me and I will destroy you.”  He stated this as a simple fact.

Jake had met a god before.  Two, actually.  There were a few ways he could play this, and with a nasty grin in his heart, he realized exactly what he was going to do.  “Why should I?” he asked.

“Do you know who I am?” growled the terrifying visage.  If Jake had had a heart, it might have burst when the god flexed his power.  Despite this visage being like a tiny tip of an enormous iceberg, the power of the sending even penetrated the circle.  When Jake noticed his prisoner’s foot creeping towards the circle, maybe to break it, he took a step further back and brought the sniveling wretch with him.  Oh no you don’t, fuck stick, he thought.

Out loud he said, “Of course I do, Tlaloc.”  Jake knew all about Tlaloc.  There were worse gods that had made themselves known after Purple Rain, but Tlaloc had taken over Mexico and some of Central America during Jake’s first life.  After the initial bloodbath, some humans had been allowed to prosper, but they’d paid for it.  This was a god that demanded human sacrifice and preferred children.

Jake had read reports that Tlaloc’s mortal priests murdered and ate babies.

Nobody had been entirely sure why so many of the god’s servants and monsters had been vampires since that bit of info hadn’t been in any of the god’s myths, but Jake understood now.  This was all a game to the gods.  Maybe using vampires was something he’d picked up over time, or part of their current rules.  Jake was beginning to understand the rules of the gods’ sick game better.

“What is your name, mortal?  I sense a familiar energy on you.”  Tlaloc’s voice roared, and Jake’s soul trembled.

“I’m not going to tell you that.”  Jake laughed.  It didn’t surprise him that a god could see right through what he was.  “But I have a message for you.”

“Speak.”

“Ahriman sends his regards.”  Jake smiled nastily, averted his gaze, and very deliberately drew his long, sharp, pinky nail across wanna be fissure-witch’s throat.  As the man gurgled, Jake kept his eyes closed, not daring to glance up.  He’d already been pushing it, and he did not want to be directly looking at Tlaloc when the god predictably lost his shit.

Tlaloc’s roar shook the entire apartment building.  Jake didn’t turn around.  Instead, he picked up a pan from the nearby kitchen floor and hit his dying captive in the temple as hard as he could.

Jake’s enhanced strength practically pulped the cultist’s head, and he instantly died.  Like a flickering lightbulb, the violet glow in the apartment began to fade, and Tlaloc’s furious screams vanished as well.

Only after the god was gone and the apartment was pitch dark again did Jake finally smile and relax.  “Fuckers,” he hissed.  Maybe this could generate a misunderstanding that would at least inconvenience Ahriman.  One could dream.

Now that everything was over, he gave himself a moment just standing there to experience all the pent up stress and fear he’d been suppressing.  His body shivered, and he concentrated, cycling his cultivation base until he’d calmed.

Jake pulled a flashlight out of his storage ring and pocketed it.  He didn’t need the light to see, but he might need it later.  Then he went to find the living captives.  One his way down the hall, he noticed that one of the vampires had dropped a monster core and he bent to pick it up before moving on.

In one of the apartment’s bedrooms, Jake found four twin-size bed frames against the bare walls. A child had been strapped to each of them.  Two of them were corpses now.  One had been bled to death and it looked like the vampires had eaten the other.  Jake had seen some horrible things in his life, but he still paused at the scene.

In his first life, there had actually been people who argued that the United States should join the Tlaloc’s empire that had sprung up in the south, they’d said that pockets of life were good, and people there were protected from the wild monsters on the rest of the continent.  Tlaloc’s empire was like any other religious state, they’d argued.  But Jake was a simple man.  He still thought any religion that required killing, torturing, and ripping the hearts out of children should be exterminated. Curfews enforced by roving bands of ravenous vampires didn’t sound like a happy way to live, either.

But some people would almost be willing to accept any way to life as long as they had some sort of stability to cling to.  This was something Jake had witnessed first hand, and it still boggled his mind that some people would prefer to be a slave with a routine than stay free and live with uncertainty.  It was madness.

Jake would rather spit in the face of death itself than ever be...livestock, but he’d seen the pictures of people handing over their children to high ranking vampires in exchange for food.

The worst sort of evil that had come to earth after Purple Rain was the kind that could wear a veneer of civilization.  This was the kind of evil that some people had the hardest time rejecting.

Fissure witches and others that sold out their fellow man for power filled Jake with rage, but those who gave everything up for the lie of safety, or comfort, they made him even angrier.  They were not even honest most of the time about their true motives.

Jake tenderly cut the bonds of the dead children.  He would not be able to lay them to rest, but he could do this much for them.  The thought was full of regret.  But after he turned, he bumped himself in the head with a palm as he remembered his storage ring.  With a wave of his hand, Jake stored the corpses of the two, both little girls who’d been around 10 years old.  He would give the bodies to someone later for a proper burial.

The two living children were a boy and a girl about the same age as the two who had died.  They had been being used as blood banks for the grisly writing on the walls.  Both them had an IV attached to rolling hangers, keeping them hydrated.  What looked like a nail had been driven through the leg of both children.  One of them was slowly being bled as jake watched.  The nail had been pulled up a bit, allowing a steady, drip, drip, drip, of blood into a paint roller pan like the one the cultist had been using.

Jake clinically wondered what kept the blood from congealing in the pan before he noticed the small, simple magical working on it.

Both children were gagged and entirely restrained, wearing nothing but filthy underwear.  Jake wished he could bring the cultist and the doll back to life to kill them again.  Actually, maybe not the doll.  Too risky.

Jake found an old sheet in a corner and tore strips before tying crude tourniquets around both children’s legs above their wounds.  He removed the IVs and made crude bandages there, too.  Then he used his sharp pinky claws to cut their bonds.  Both children were thankfully unconscious.

He didn’t know if one of these two had been screaming for help earlier, or one of the dead ones.  He didn’t want to think about it.

It would have been handy if he could put the two surviving children in his storage ring, but that was impossible for living things.  He was going to need to carry them, which meant he couldn’t phase out of the apartment.

Jake lifted the two victims as gently as he could and headed for the door.  He briefly thought about kicking the door down, but decided against it.  Instead, he just opened the deadbolt from the inside.  It still took some force to free the entry from all the caulking, but he managed.  Some unused tubes of caulk and a caulking gun were near the door, discarded and Jake stored them away. Then he left and closed the door behind him.  He wasn’t sure if leaving the apartment closed would hinder any other evil fucks, but he hoped so.

Burning it down would have been best, but there were still other people hiding nearby.

At first he wasn’t sure what to do with the two little girls he was carting around, but then he had an idea.  He cycled his cultivation base to locate an apartment in another building that had people in it.  His senses told him that one apartment in a shadowy part of the complex had four people, two adults and two children.  Where the building was located meant it had a decent chance of being overlooked by looters and monsters, too.

Jake moved there without a problem.

Once he was outside the ground floor apartment he was targeting, Jake set down the children he’d rescued as gently as he could.  He felt another flash of rage at how they looked.  Their wounds and condition looked even more terrible outside in the starlight.  The little boy had blond hair that had been caked with blood.  The other captive still had a bracelet on, a little pink thing that said, “Love” in sparkly letters.  Her dark skin had dried blood all over.

They weren’t his responsibility, but Jake couldn’t just leave them.

He phased into the apartment, appearing in an empty bathroom.  After he’d appeared, he heard a drip on the floor.  With a start, he realized he’d actually been wounded, probably in the fight with the vampires.  Jake tsked.  The wounds would close soon, but it reminded himself to be more careful in the future.

These people must have lived in this place a long time.  The apartment had a fairly robust mystical threshold for a rental, but it didn’t bother Jake at all.  That’s when he realized why.  He kept thinking of himself as a monster, but he did still have a human soul, after all.

Sometimes, Jake couldn’t stop his mind from wandering, thinking about random things he’d learned while he’d been a magic geek.  It’d been a long night, but there was still a lot more to do, and more people to kill.  He needed to finish this errand.

While he wasn’t willing to look away and not do what was obviously right, he didn’t want to take all night with it, either.

Jake stepped out of the bathroom and spotted the family.  They were all huddled together in the family room.  A single candle provided some light.  All the windows had blankets taped over them.  Smart, thought Jake.  He wondered if they’d read his internet posts about Survival 101.

He had no way to gently let these people know he was there, and eventually decided he didn’t have time to worry about it.  None of them seemed to have guns, so they weren’t a threat to him.  The man had an axe.  The woman had what looked like a sharpened mop handle nearby.  Both little boys were sleeping on a couch.

Jake spotted a crucifix on the wall and grabbed it as he moved down the hall.  He wasn’t worried about any danger to himself, but preventing these people from having a heart attack would be good.  Jake couldn’t help how he looked, though.  Maybe the crucifix might help--he wasn’t sure how yet, though.

He knocked on the wall as he entered the family room.  The woman was the first to turn and her eyes grew round as saucers.  She uttered a squeak and breathed in, preparing to scream.  Jake rushed forward, supernaturally fast and clamped a hand on her mouth.

The man began lifting his axe, but Jake very slowly, very deliberately shook his head no.  Then the man fired off a few lines of rapid fire spanish at the woman while not taking his eyes off Jake.  His expression was full of horror, but resolute.  The man glanced at the two little boys on the couch who were somehow still asleep.

Spanish, huh? Thought Jake.  He spoke Spanish horribly but knew a little bit.  After holding up the crucifix, he said, “No tengan miedo.”  Do not be afraid.

He tapped the cross against his forehead.  “Soy el Grim.”  I am Grim.  Hopefully, these people had heard of the Grim.

As the adults stared at him with shock, he tried to search for words in his limited vocabulary.  “No soy mal,” he finally said.  I am not evil.

Then he willed his eyes to glow blue, and said one of the first phrases he’d ever learned in Spanish.  “Ayúdeme.  Por favor.”  Help me.  Please.

Jake handed the crucifix to the shell shocked man and placed one finger across his lips before slowly removing his hand from the woman’s face.  She looked like she was about a hair away from fainting, or losing her mind, but was barely holding on.  Her breaths came in little pants.

After he stood, Jake went to the door.  He unlocked it and went outside to get the two girls where he’d left them.  Then he carried them into the apartment, shutting and locking the door behind him.

The woman seemed to snap out of her daze when she saw the victims. She rushed to them and covered them protectively with her body.  At first she barked Spanish at Jake that he couldn’t understand, but the man put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head.  “No Gloria.”  Her eyes flashed in equal parts fear and anger, but the man shook his head again.  He turned to Jake and said, “El angel.”

Did he just call me an angel? Wondered Jake.  Ultimately, he decided it didn’t matter.

Around this time the two boys woke up, but the man noticed even before Jake.  He clamped a hand over both their mouths, and spoke softly, urgently, in Spanish.  Both children had eyes as big as saucers as they looked Jake up and down.

Jake ignored them all.  He sniffed loudly, theatrically, pointed at the door, and took the caulk and caulking gun out of his storage ring.  Then he sniffed and pointed until he thought they might understand.

He quickly put caulk around the edges of the door.  It should be enough to help prevent average monsters from smelling the family.  When it was dry, it might also make the apartment at least a little harder to break in, too.

Jake moved over to the family again and squatted, hopefully making himself less intimidating.  Then he pulled a few useful things out of his storage ring, including some medical supplies, clean towels, food, a few bottles of water, some medicine, and weapons.  He handed a shotgun directly to the man, and just in case the stocky, swarthy guy didn’t know how to use, Jake slowly and clearly displayed how to rack the slide, load shells, and clear the chamber.  Jake even showed the silent man where the safety was.

The woman put a hand over her mouth where she knelt on the floor, her other hand on the bruised body of a would-be sacrificial victim.  She crossed herself, Catholic style, and said something to Jake that he didn’t understand.  All he caught was, “Dios.”  So, something about God.

Jake smiled in what he hoped was a comforting way and said, “Si.” Yes.  He hoped he was agreeing to something good.  With one last glance around, he figured he’d done all he could.  These people’s lives were in their own hands, now.  The injured children would be a burden, but Jake had given the family some good supplies.  So with one last mental shrug, Jake phased and went through the wall before moving to the edge of the apartment complex.

This entire stop hadn’t taken too long, but for the first time since he’d become a monster, Jake felt like he’d done something decent.  It was also the closest he’d come to losing his unnatural life so far.  The experience felt...like it’d been exactly what he’d needed.

The rage from finding his parents murdered less than a half hour ago was still there, and Jake still planned to kill some gang members that night.  He felt like his emotions were floating in the time period before eventual crushing grief, when his heart felt heavy but he could still function.  His overall plan for the night hadn’t changed, but now he could feel the glimmer of something past just getting revenge for his parents.

Maybe after he avenged them, he could honor the memory of his slain family by tearing apart every fucking monster and dark gods-worshipping asshole he could.  That would be a good way to go out.

All of the mercy had been burned out of Jake before he’d even become a zombie.  But he was beginning to feel something new.  Maybe he could live on spite, and even do some good with it.

Jake’s eyes glowed blue as he rushed through the forest.  He was nearing his real target now.  There was no way of knowing before he got there, but he hoped the Warhounds would be there.

In the past, before he’d died, Jake had hated violence.  He’d approached every mission professionally and he’d always felt bone-weary after life or death struggles.  But right now, he’d never felt physically better.

Part of him quietly wondered if this was a good thing or not.

But he then remembered the children he’d just rescued, and the fact that he’d managed to destroy a fissure witch before it’d even been born.  He had to accept that what he’d just done had been something he never would have been able to accomplish by himself when he was still human.  And after all of that, he was not even tired.

Jake hadn’t chosen this existence, it’d been forced on him.  And sure, he was worried that it was changing him, but his family was already dead.  The world was falling apart.  What else did he have now but to use this power?  Was he going to just… vanish into the forest to mourn his family forever?  Make some crappy fort like he was participating in a survival show and live off of rabbits? As a shadow ghoul?

Something was growing in Jake.  Maybe it was righteous anger, maybe he was just tired of being yanked around by bullshit ever since Purple Rain--twice-- but Jake was sick of it all.  He was tired of seeing normal people be forced to hide, die, or give up their dignity.  Jake couldn’t save everyone, but maybe he could kill a whole hell of a lot of bad guys.

And maybe if he got strong enough, he could even find and destroy that demon thing that had caused all the Grasshopper Mice to die in his first life.

If good things were done through spite, weren’t they still good?  Jake had watched evil win what felt like his entire life, it had just become more obvious after Purple Rain.  As Jake raced through the woods, he decided that he was done playing by any rules that didn’t get results. If he’d been more willing to break rules or even just scare people, maybe he would have been in time to save his parents.  In fact, maybe his cultivation teacher had been right after all.  It was galling to admit, but the longer Jake lived, the more it seemed like the grumpy old man had been right.

He was too old and too seasoned to beat himself up about his parent’s death, but he also refused not to learn from it.  His grief would be much easier to bear if he could find a way to keep moving forward.  Power itself would never be Jake’s only goal, but it was a toal, a means to an end.  He was sure now that he had to get stronger.  Convictions without power were just wishes.

With this new resolve, a feeling of something he’d recently lost began to grow again…purpose.

The small part of his mind that had been complaining went silent.