53-God Complex

“So, I hear you’re going to go off and deprive us all of the pleasure of your company.”

James turned and saw Sierra standing there in the twilight. Her expressions were usually harder for him to read than most people’s, but he almost literally couldn’t see her face here.

“I’ll be back.”

“So you’ve been telling folks. I hear you’re going to free a bunch of prisoners from an evil cult.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“Why?”

“Well, people being sacrificed to an evil god is bad.”

“And?” She sounded suspicious. “No other reason?”

“Do I need another reason?” he asked, genuinely curious what she’d say.

“I would think you would,” she said slowly. “But maybe I don’t know you as well as I think I do.”

“It’s only been a few days,” James said.

“You know, you’re an interesting guy.” She sat down on a log from the deforestation earlier. “I thought that, over the last few days since we ran into this family, I’d started to figure you out. You’re a guy who likes to dominate the people around him and kill things. Maybe you’re a little more concerned about that than you are about getting back to that family you have somewhere. None of which is to say that you’re a bad person. I kind of admire it. And you’re definitely better than Chava. Better than Kurt. If I wasn’t personally in danger, if you were just a character in a story, I’d definitely admire you. There’s a logic to the way you work, and I can see you becoming someone important if you keep going the way you are.”

“I feel as if you’re coming to a point.”

“Even when you killed my group members, when you killed my brother, you had a good reason for it. And I get it. I don’t even blame you anymore. I logically can’t. You just defended yourself. And now you’re just trying to get the most out of this place that you possibly can. That includes pawns for after we get out of the Orientation. If I was a cynical woman, I would think that’s what you want to do this for. And if you were a cynical man, I’d want to say something like, ‘Don’t do this thing. It’s not worth the headache.’ Because you might bring some heat back on us, and even if you don’t, you might die a horrible death”

James took a deep breath. This was unexpected. “A little harsh, but understandable. I won’t speak as directly as you, because I don’t think we know each other that well yet, but I like that you feel you can be so open with me. And, for what it’s worth, I enjoy your company, despite the fact that I feel certain you’re holding a grudge. There is something about danger that I like, obviously. I also don’t think of Alan and Mitzi and Cliff as pawns. More like valued allies. People I don’t want to have to do without. If it feels like I’m managing the people around me, that’s why. I want to maintain the current equilibrium and keep the group together. Maybe I’ll feel similarly close to the Rodriguezes in a few more weeks.”

I’m already unreasonably fond of Camila, James thought, even if it’s just because I keep picturing my grandmother when I’m with her.

“And after the Orientation? What’s your end goal? What are you going to do with all these people you’re collecting?

James snorted and shook his head. “You make it sound as if I’m some evil mastermind with everything planned out. Right now, I’m just trying to stay alive!”

Even in the bad lighting, he could tell she didn’t really believe him. The moonlight was enough for that much. She shook her head, rose, and walked away. He smiled.

As far as he was concerned, Sierra was just making his life easier by being so direct. One less variable he had to really focus on managing. He thought he understood her just a little bit now. She clearly didn’t want him dead. He imagined she wanted to remain under the umbrella of his protection, the same feeling he hoped to evoke in every member of his camp.

He finished choosing his gear for the trip, and he silently departed.

He left as soon after sunset as he could, to give himself maximum time to achieve his objectives out of the sight of Moloch. It was strange to think that he was hiding from an evil god by moving at night, but James didn’t question that quirk of fate over-much.

With the sun down and his makeshift mask, secured to his face with his internally produced spider silk, diminishing his range of vision, he focused most of his attention on simply looking where he was going. James moved alone, as silently and efficiently as he could only do alone.

But, being alone, he couldn’t help being distracted by his own doubts.

He knew that this was a bad idea. Maybe Mitzi would end up delivering that stupid message he’d given her for Mina and Yulia, because James would be roasting in Moloch’s stupid bonfire. There was a lot running against him. Even the moon was against him. James had never had cause to noticed the moon in the Orientation space before, but in apparent simulation of Earth’s moon, it seemed to have phases. Tonight, it was full.

If the Moloch cultists were just killing people, James would’ve left well enough alone. He didn’t like sticking his neck out. But he couldn’t ignore the barbaric, torturous methods employed. He wanted to roast them all alive. Let them see how it felt. And he wanted to save their prisoners.

It was the first time since getting to this place that he felt called to do something for nearly selfless reasons, although he was also conscious that they would likely turn into devoted followers afterward.

Still, Mitzi was right that this was as near a suicide mission as James could imagine and still justify. He had no idea what the Moloch cultists’ real strengths were, let alone any clear weaknesses or points of vulnerability. He knew only what he’d seen and what Rostov had been cocky enough to show him.

James imagined that Rostov wasn’t really trying to dissuade any kind of future attack by him when he described the Moloch camp’s defenses. James thought he understood Rostov a bit, because he had the same weakness. He was bragging. He badly needed someone else to know how clever and dangerous and secure he is in his fortified camp. That level of arrogance was beyond what James would let himself indulge in. Hopefully it would be a fatal weakness.

A similar level of knowledge had been enough to wipe out the spider nest, but the spiders weren’t strategic thinkers. Besides the Queen, they didn’t seem very intelligent except that by the end, they managed to work together to capture James. Even then, a simple trick like playing dead was enough to penetrate their defenses.

Just have to hope that arrogant prick showed me the better part of his security system and didn’t hide any giant three-headed dogs or anything like that. Given how Moloch had seemingly put a heavy finger on the scale in Rostov’s favor thus far, James had no faith that the cultists’ defenses would be as reasonable—or as penetrable—as they seemed.

If James was Moloch’s Prophet, there would be layers of defense that no one knew about, including other members of the cult. After all, Moloch’s human sacrifices were bound to draw a lot of negative attention from people who found the practice as distasteful as James did.

For the fourth or fifth time, James wondered what the limitations of Rostov’s wards were. No power that he’d seen thus far was limitless in duration and effectiveness. Elemental magic was limited by the amount of mana poured in. Spider silk and similar abilities consumed calories or stamina or both to use. His Predator in Human Skin abilities were all basically enhancements of his existing human capabilities—or rather, his Evolver Human capabilities.

As he trudged through the darkness, James came up with his plan to get around each of the known layers of Rostov’s defenses.

Finally, he arrived in the area he recognized as the near outskirts of the Moloch camp. The column of smoke remained a very helpful landmark for gauging his distance.

Unwilling to get close enough to actually see the camp itself just yet, he paused.

He adjusted his Flame Resistant Wolfskin Pelt—a moderately strong piece of equipment, and one Rostov hadn’t seen him use earlier—wrapping it more loosely around his body. He made sure his False Impression falsification of his Identify was still in place—he’d decided to go with showing up as Jeffrey Ross, to ensure he would initially appear to be an ally if anyone besides Ross spotted him. And he began Silent Spellcasting.

Slowly, wind Mana gathered around him, until finally, he felt that he had enough. James unleashed the power, and the wind wrapped around him, blowing under the Wolfskin Pelt and propelling him into the air.

James shot up, then hovered far above the trees, and finally gradually descended into the Moloch camp. He put himself down directly in front of the Moloch statue so that he could use it for cover. The best guess he had for a weakness to Rostov’s wards was that they either wouldn’t work after sundown, in which case they were a non-factor, or they might not catch something above or below a certain altitude.

Since digging underground would be much more Mana-intensive and probably much noisier than simply lifting his body weight, he flew. He landed where he did, because who would expect an intruder to appear right next to Moloch’s statue?

As James landed, nothing appeared to be stirring. But Rostov had mentioned guards. James wanted to get a sense of their shift timing and where they patrolled.

He pulled himself very close to the left leg of Moloch, and he activated Natural Camouflage. His heart rate slowed, and his body relaxed and seemed to James almost to melt into the statue’s leg. He felt a deep patience settle over him, and he simply observed.

The first thing he noticed was Isabelle Rose, still alive. He hadn’t noticed her when he landed, because he was only looking out for threats. By contrast, she was barely still clinging to life. Her chest rose and fell in weak, subtle movements. She lay on a stone tablet, a few feet away from Moloch’s bonfire. Someone had apparently had the decency to take her down from the whipping post. Perhaps they simply thought she might die in the night if she wasn’t placed in a less unpleasant posture.

Then again, perhaps placing her on this tablet was just about presenting her in the way that Moloch preferred his victims, or about making it easier to torture her. Rose’s skin was flayed to ribbons in long, dark red strips across her chest, stomach, and thighs. James winced at the sight.

All I need to do is get close to her to save her, James thought. His healing would pull her back no matter how close she was to death, he felt confident. He just needed to make sure the coast was clear first.

It was painful, after noticing her just a few paces away, to remain in place and do nothing. But for an interminable period, that was what James did.

He crouched in Moloch’s shadow for long minutes, waiting, until a flicker of the bonfire showed him two other people walking along the outskirts of the camp. The two figures wore the same white hooded cloaks James had seen the cultists in earlier. A few seconds later, he heard them.

“Waste of time,” one yawned.

“Shut up, and let’s get this over with,” the other said. “Our shift is over as soon as we check on the prisoners and wake the next two.”

“What’s the point?” the first asked. “Where are the prisoners going to go? Deeper underground? I don’t even understand why we left her alive tonight—” He gestured at Isabelle Rose.

“Shut up about that!” the second said, apparently a bit louder than he intended. He looked around to see if he’d woken anyone before he continued: “You know Moloch prefers sacrifices at first light or at sunset, and thanks to those senior citizens lost in the woods from earlier, we didn’t get the timing right for sunset.”

“I don’t know jack about Moloch,” the first griped, “except that we sure are doing a lot of taking bullshit orders about his preferred sacrificial methods. If I wanted to take orders like this, I’d have become a short-order cook!”

“Revered Moloch guided us through the dangers of the forest,” the second insisted, glancing around them again as he spoke.

“Yes, he did,” the first agreed. “That was what we needed him for. Now, though—”

The two men began to move out of James’s easy hearing range. Who are those guys? One of them at least seemed far from the loyal Moloch cultist he expected to see. James used Identify.

The first guy registered as:

Max Roper, Lv. 7

The second was:

Philippe Rousseau, Lv. 6

He filed the information away for later use, and then, slowly and cautiously, he moved. There must be a short lag between this patrol and the next, while the two guards checked on the other prisoners and then awakened their relief. In that time, he had to heal Isabelle Rose and maneuver into position to be able to free the other prisoners when the coast was clear.

Still crouching, he approached the half-dead woman. The first thing he noticed as he got closer was that she was tied to the tablet with thin cords, as if her injuries didn’t secure her well enough on their own. James thought that he could hack through the cords fairly quickly, but it would add an extra minute to an already delicate rescue operation.

The second thing he noticed was that her wounds were even worse than he’d noticed on first inspection. There were injuries to her back that he couldn’t completely see, since she lay face-up. Those injuries looked to be worse than the gouges cut out of her front side, because the tablet beneath her was a mess of semi-congealed blood, too much for the more visible front wounds to account for. If he had to guess without flipping her over, James thought her whole back must have been flayed open.

Recalling how long Cliff had needed to recover from regrowing a severed hand when James and Alan healed him, James recognized that Isabelle Rose would probably be of no help at all in her own rescue. He would have to rely on the other prisoners.

Since he was already close, however, James used Laying On of Hands and began healing the injuries that were within his reach. The long gouges out of her front began to heal themselves, and the flesh slowly knitted itself back together.

As her body repaired itself, the woman stirred.

“Ugh–ahh, hurts so much,” she whimpered. Fresh tears ran along the tracks formed by dried ones on her face.

“Shhhh,” James whispered, pressing one hand to her mouth. “I’m here to help, Isabelle. Just need you to be quiet, and I’ll heal you and get you out of here.”

“Just–just kill me,” she managed. “My brother, s-save my brother!”

Her body went limp, but James could hear her racing pulse and knew she’d only lost consciousness again. Healing her to the degree that he had took a surprising amount of Mana, and though the gouges to her front were reduced to angry red welts, he’d done almost nothing to the wounds on her back.

James recognized he couldn’t finish the job now and still be ready for a possible fight to get the prisoners out of here. At least, after the work he’d just done, she shouldn’t die while he detoured to secure the other prisoners. And she still looked messed up enough that if the next shift of guards approached her, they might not notice he’d healed her from a cursory glance.

Hopefully her brother’s a Healer, he thought.

Keeping low, he crept away from Isabelle Rose’s body, moving away from the bonfire and the Moloch statue and toward the tree line without actually entering it. He guessed entering the tree line would probably set off Rostov’s wards.

He moved in a wide arc, around the cultists’ tents, toward the area Rostov had identified where the prisoners were kept.

The next set of guards, a male and a female, were already starting off on their patrol, fortunately moving in an arc going in the opposite direction from James’s path. He should have a little time, unless they discovered that some of the sacrifice’s injuries had been healed.

Cold sweat trickled down James’s neck as he passed by the biggest tent, which was also closest to the tree line on the side he moved through. James could sense that beneath this thin frame of animal skin and fabric, Rostov was sleeping peacefully. He wasn’t sure how he knew this was Rostov’s tent, besides the size of it, but then his nose twitched. He realized that he smelled a trace of something that he’d also caught earlier when he met Rostov.

Something spicy and slightly sweet. Incense?

A powerful temptation came over James. He’s asleep. I could kill him right now and never have to deal with this madness again. And good sense asserted itself. Never have to deal with it, until Moloch creates another Prophet anyway. A Prophet who will probably be instructed that I’m public enemy number one. Still. It was tempting.

Who knew if the next Chosen One of Moloch would be as effective as Rostov had been at carrying out his grotesque will? And James could practically hear Rostov’s pulse. It would be all too easy to end him. Then he could free the prisoners with one fewer threat. If anyone found out that Rostov was dead, it would destroy the camp’s unity in an instant. They’d be in no shape to round up the prisoners without his guiding hand.

After a long few moments of inner conflict, James walked away. He was here on a mission. He wouldn’t jeopardize it to possibly kill the enemy’s leader.

He approached the underground prison and began Silent Spellcasting.