Fallen Family

I ducked under the police tape and opened the creaky door. Officers nodded at me as I went by. I nodded back and headed upstairs. I removed my coat and handed it off to one of the officers there.

She took it without complaint. She didn't meet my eyes, which was just as good. I opened the door of my sister's room and headed inside. There was a wrap over her body. The window off to the side was broken.

They hadn't moved her until I had gotten there. I removed the top half of the covering. My sister's face seemed serene in death. It didn't look like she had been brutally murdered at all until I removed the whole thing.

Her white shirt had been stained red with her blood. Multiple stab wounds were prominent on her stomach. One of her legs was broken and one hand was bent at an unnatural angle.

I closed her eyes with my fingers and numbly put the covering back. I nodded to the paramedics, who wrapped her in a body bag and took her away.

She wasn't my true sister, but she had essentially adopted me when I had fallen. She was as close to family as I had, but now she was dead, the only person who I cared about and who cared about me.

I surveyed the crime scene. I had to treat this as just another murder, emotions couldn't get in the way. Detective Kingston walked up to me. He kept his eyes downcast and gave a bow. I patted his shoulder and went back to surveying the scene.

"An emergency call was placed at six-thirty in the evening. Officers got here six minutes later, but it was too late. There seems to be a break-in, through the window. Nothing was stolen and nothing was destroyed. This was an assassination, sir," he said.

"Is it so?", I said.

"This wasn't a mage's or a hitman's work, that's for sure,"

"So a common criminal,"

"Yes sir, that's what we believe. We also found a calling card,"

He got something from the table and handed it to me. It was a white half-mask splattered with blood. The smile on the mask had haunted me for ages, and it looked like it had finally caught up. "Legion," I said, softly.

Kingston nodded grimly. "Looks like they're starting to get their revenge," he said. "It seems so," I said. "What will you do now, sir?", he asked. "I'll finish what I started all those years ago," I said.

Kingston stayed quiet. I looked at the bloody footprints leading to the window. They were a size smaller than my own. A small metal pipe lay next to the broken glass.

Water had leaked into the blackwood of the floor. My sister had a brilliant view of the Richtenstate mountains off in the distance. The Pureriver ran from the mountains and past the house.

I jumped out the window and floated down serenely, my cape fluttering behind me. I then hailed a cab and went home. I walked through the doors of my Blackstone mansion.

I went to my armoury doors and pushed them open. I hadn't opened those doors in seventeen years, since the Great War, the only conflict involving all ten nations in the continent of Eladia.

I dusted off my favourite cavalry sword. The metal still gleamed after all that time. I held the golden grip and swung a few times. It would kill. I went over to the guns.

I picked up a handgun and a sniper rifle. I shot a few practice shots. They would kill. I went around and picked up body armour and extra weapons and ammunition.

I went to the cab waiting outside. The driver got nervous seeing the weapons but I assured him that they weren't meant for him. I guided him to the last known hideout of Legion.

I paid him a thousand crona in notes to hang around. He took the money and waited in the street over. I breathed in slow and kicked in the iron door.

The door sailed to the other side of the room and crushed a sweeper there. Blood splattered onto some of the gangsters nearby. They stood in shock for a second before drawing knives and guns.

Almost half of them went down in a hail of bullets before they could get a shot off. I kept an eye for shoe sizes as I gunned them down. None of them matched the ones in my sister's room.

One of them got a lucky swipe with a knife and cut my arm. He stared at my golden blood in shock and made the mistake of looking into my eyes. His eyes burned out and his soul was vaporized. My blood slowly evaporated the knife's blade.

I stepped through the bodies and pools of blood and opened the hidden trapdoor that led to their cave. I slid down and spun. A few elites were speaking to a novice. His shoes matched.

The elites in half-masks pulled guns. I dropped a few of them before running for an outcropping for cover. My armour soaked two bullets out of three that hit me. One hit my ankle.

My blood sizzled and hissed on the stone floor. I peeked out briefly and saw them escorting the novice away. I shot the ones engaging me and ran after them.

My ankle throbbed but I ignored it. They wandered through the confusing maze of tunnels. I dropped three of them. Only two escorts to go. I took a deep breath and let loose Panic.

The scream of Panic was the most dangerous weapon in my arsenal, but unfortunately, it took a lot of energy and left me unable to use any magic. My vision doubled and I went to one knee.

I heard screams from the escorts and the novice coming from up ahead. They would be curled up on the floor in a panic attack. I slowly made my way forward.

My ankle gave way as I neared. I crawled forward and reached them. They were prone as expected. I sliced the throats of the escorts and stood up, despite my bleeding ankle. My shoe had been vaporized.

I sat the novice up. He stared without comprehension at vengeance incarnate come for him. He was a large man with bulging muscles. He was bald and had no facial hair.

I scooped up blood from my ankle in my palm and poured it into his mouth. His tongue sizzled and he screamed. It dripped through his jaw and onto his crotch. I held him in place as he thrashed around.

After that, I cut off each of his fingers and toes, slowly. I staunched his bleeding. He couldn't die yet. I broke both his arms and legs. He then went unconscious. 

I waited as more people flooded into the tunnels and I killed each one of them. I helped him enough to wake him up. He tried to meet my eyes to end his agony but I avoided his pleading eyes.

I tore off a length of pipe from the plumbing and kept it ready. I took my side knife and out and stabbed him the same number of times as my sister, seven. 

He was slowly bleeding out. I laid him out exactly as my sister was. Then I beat him to almost death with the metal pipe. Only then did I look into his eyes.

His eyes and soul burned. He wouldn't go to the underworld ever. I shoved the pipe through his mouth and into the stone below. I hung my calling card there, a card with an hourglass on it.

I walked through the tunnels and went back up to the surface. The bodies were being carted away by the police in body bags. The blood was being mopped up.

They didn't need to investigate who it was that killed them. They knew and they wouldn't do anything about it. What could do they anyway? They couldn't stop a fallen god from his path of revenge even if the world tried and goodness knew I would get revenge.