Chapter 219

The Convergence of Wills, Pt. 8

“I felt it, too,” the Lost Prophet said again, his voice coming from the mass of chained blood as it slowly resolved into a humanoid shape. Chains crisscrossed his body, pulling tight, but he didn’t seem to notice. “When you all joined your Wills together, I was there, beneath your feet, and I felt every thread. Oh, what a beautiful convergence.”

The battlefield had gone still. Not because the infected had stopped. The defenders were still fighting on the perimeter. But every superhuman within earshot had paused, attention drawn to the figure suspended in chains above the terrace.

Even Maximilian’s steady climb upwards had stopped. The Northern Shield’s spear had stilled.

“Golden threads,” the Lost Prophet continued, his blood-formed face tilting skyward toward the two misshapen moons. “Reaching across the world from people who don’t even know you, lending you their Will because they believe in you. Hope. Trust. Love.” He laughed softly. “Such a beautiful thing.”

His head tilted back down. Red eyes swept across them all.

“But there were other threads, weren’t there? Darker ones. Harder to see.” He sighed. “Mine. Reaching from every soul that fears me. Every person who watched Panama and couldn’t sleep for weeks. Every child who heard the word vampire and checked under their bed.” His voice dropped to something intimate, as though sharing a secret with old friends. “Do you understand what that means? Fear is worship. Terror is devotion. And devotion, given freely or taken by force, is the path to becoming Divine.”

He closed his eyes. The chains groaned around him.

“I came to your little press conference looking for answers. And you gave them to me. All of you. I felt it happen. The moment I crossed the threshold.” His eyes opened, and they blazed. “I am the Lost Prophet. And I have never been more than I am now.”

Alexander raised his hand. “Too long; didn’t listen.”

Lightning erupted from his gauntlet. The bolt hit the blood-form’s head and detonated it. The humanoid shape burst apart from the neck up, spraying crimson mist into the thin Martian air.

A scream tore through the crowd below.

Alexander spun. Among the huddled survivors, a man was falling. His head was gone. Simply gone. The body toppled sideways into the people around him, blood spraying across those closest. People scrambled backward, shrieking, shoving each other to get away from the corpse that had just been a living person.

Alexander’s stomach dropped. He understood. Instantly and completely. And the understanding was worse than the horror.

The Northern Shield had already been moving. Alexander saw the spear thrust, saw the beam lance through the center of the reforming blood-form, and opened his mouth to shout a warning that came too late.

Far too late.

A woman in the crowd clutched her chest. A hole appeared through her torso, punching clean through from front to back. She looked down at it, her expression more confused than pained. Then she crumpled.

“Stop!” Alexander screamed. “Nobody attack him! The damage is transferring to the people!”

The Northern Shield’s spear jerked by an inch, the follow-up attack barely missing. The man stared at the crowd below him. At the woman he’d just killed. The color drained from his face.

Hjordis pulled up hard, greatsword raised and ready, her eyes darting between the blood-form and the survivors.

The Lost Prophet’s head reformed slowly, almost leisurely. The chains still bound him, but the grin spreading across his features carried with it the confidence of a man who’d just discovered he was invincible.

Then he began to laugh.

“Oh,” he said, still laughing, looking down at the terrified survivors. “Oh, that’s what it feels like.” He flexed his blood-formed arms against the chains. “I can taste them. Every single one. Their fear is exquisite. They are bound to me now, did you know that? Bound by the most primal force in the universe.”

He looked directly at Alexander.

“And so long as they fear me, they are mine. My congregation. My sacrificial lambs.” His voice hardened beneath the amusement. “I am their Prophet and they will die for me.”

They all stared in silence while the Lost Prophet cackled quietly to himself.

Every tactical option Alexander could think of ended in more dead civilians. They couldn’t attack the Lost Prophet, but they also couldn’t hold him forever.

Raelene’s voice cut across the comms. Calm, but carrying a sense of urgency. “We need to get him away from the people. Can you do it, Augustus?”

“Not alone. Portal locations are fixed. The others will have to carry him through.”

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“A single portal won’t be enough,” Talia cut in, her voice clipped. “There are millions of people in this city.” A pause. “I’ve cross-referenced our stellar positions, Phobos’s orbital track, and Mars’s current rotation against known settlements. Northwest heads away from all the recorded habitat domes.”

Raelene hesitated. “Do it. Alexander. Maximilian. Julia.” Another pause. “Take Hjordis and Sindre, too. You all have to go, just in case.”

“On it,” Augustus said. His wand spun, and a portal began forming next to the Lost Prophet.

Alexander turned and called out to Hjordis and the Northern Shield. Sindre, according to Raelene. “We’re relocating him. You’re coming with, in case he has any other tricks left.”

They both nodded.

The cackling had stopped. “You don’t actually think that will be enough, do you? I’m a god!”

Alexander turned back to the pool of blood that had compressed itself down into a facsimile of a human. “I wasn’t sure, but you sound worried. And I notice you still haven’t escaped the chains.”

A box-shaped barrier snapped into existence around the Lost Prophet, cutting off his response.

Alexander glanced at the Dragon Lord. The man stood, leaning forward with both arms outstretched, fingers curled into claws. Scales crept up his neck from beneath the guild jacket.

“Max?”

“Tier 3,” Maximilian grunted. “He’s fighting me. Can’t hold the chains much longer. Need to hurry.”

Alexander’s mind split. One thread tracked the fighting around them. More infected were coming from the city, though the numbers had finally slowed enough to be almost insignificant. In the distance, the others reinforced Julia’s position, allowing her to disengage. She raced toward where he and the others were waiting.

Titanic floated a safe distance from where the fighting had been most intense, King still hanging unconscious from the giant’s shoulder.

Alexander wondered why Titanic hadn’t moved, but that was an issue for later. Behind the man, the palace windows flashed, as the combat inside continued.

Also not his problem.

The other mental thread had an idea. He turned to Maximilian. “I know it’s a terrible time to ask, but do you still trust me?”

“Regrettably,” Maximilian growled through his teeth.

Alexander nodded. “Totally understandable.” He paused. “I think I can help you contain him.”

Sweat ran down the Dragon Lord’s forehead. “How?”

“Give me control of your chains. You maintain the binding magic, I’ll handle keeping him wrapped up.”

Maximilian turned. “That…”

“Might work,” Raelene said.

“Portal’s up,” Augustus interrupted.

Julia pulled up alongside them. Hjordis’s flaming wings beat the air as she bobbed up and down. Her brother wove slightly from side to side to remain airborne. Maximilian stood, one foot higher than the other, two small barriers holding him up.

And the Lost Prophet remained trapped inside a barrier, held aloft entirely by Maximilian’s Will.

It was one of the strangest moments Alexander had ever experienced.

“You two idiots want to stop staring into each other’s eyes and tell us the plan?” Hjordis called out.

Alexander grinned. Then started pointing, fingers flicking wildly at everyone he referenced. “Max is going to keep the Lost Prophet bound. I’m going to push the Lost Prophet through the portals using Max’s chains. Julia is going to carry Max because he left his dragon at his mom’s. And you’re going to carry Augustus because he can’t fly well, leaving your brother to guard us when we inevitably get ambushed portal-hopping across the city.”

He took a deep breath. “Until eventually we get far enough away to murder the Lost Prophet and bury him in the desert, but only after we’ve taken a sacred blood oath to tell no one where his…” He trailed off. “Fuck. He doesn’t have bones.” He glanced around. “His blood? Less symbolic. Anyway, where nobody will ever find his remains.”

Everyone stared at him.

Max grunted. “Hurry the fuck up.”

Alexander rubbed the back of his neck. “Right. Drop the barrier.”

The box vanished.

Alexander’s Will burst free. He was now familiar enough with Maximilian’s that they didn’t immediately clash, though there remained a powerful pressure where they met. Which withdrew a heartbeat later.

The Lost Prophet flexed. For a moment, the chains started unwinding as his bloated blood body grew larger.

Metallokinesis seized control.

Alexander reached out and clenched a fist, pulling them tighter, and watched for a reaction. They wound back around the Lost Prophet, even as the Tier 3’s Will pushed back. It was strong. Refined, even. But Alexander was mostly fresh, and he could see himself holding it for a long while yet, so long as they continued binding the form in place as they were meant to.

Maximilian’s shoulders slumped. He exhaled, then straightened to his full height, running fingers through slick hair, pulling it back into order.

He turned to Alexander. “Good idea. This will work.”

The Lost Prophet spread his hands, awkwardly, arms still bound at his sides. A wide grin stretched over his blood-formed face. “Now what?”

He hadn’t heard the plan from inside the box.

Alexander cocked his head. “Uh… we’re taking you to the water park?”

Julia snorted.

The Lost Prophet’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t kill me. I can feel the entire city cowering before my existence. You would have to kill more than I ever have in order to stop me.”

They didn’t answer him. Julia and Hjordis grabbed Maximilian and Augustus. Sindre dashed through the portal, followed by Augustus, princess carried in Hjordis’s arms.

Alexander turned back to the others. “Annie. Talia.” They turned to look up at him. “Look after the others. And once the palace is secure, find Frank and the crew.”

Annie nodded. “We will.” She sounded more subdued than he’d ever heard from her before. “Make sure you end that bastard.”

“Will do.”

“He’s wrong,” Talia said. “Whatever those threads are, it wasn’t people’s Will reaching out. It was something else.” She paused. “And god or not, his Will still has a limit. Take him as far as you can before you test where it ends.”

Alexander nodded. He commanded Droney to stay, along with most of the drones. They were needed to support the team. Only the new shield drones and a handful of the older combat models raced into the portal ahead of him.

Then Metallokinesis pulsed, and he flew through alongside Julia and Maximilian, carrying the Lost Prophet with him.

The portal closed behind them.

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