Legacy

Police tape flutters in the wind. I look up at the office block. It's been abandoned for the past week, since they found everyone on the fourth floor dead. Throats slit, blood spattered across every surface. Police had no suspects, forensics had no clues, the coroner determined that everyone had died simultaneously. 34 people, slain where they stood, before they even knew they were in danger.

The dark blue crystal I wear around my neck glints, and I search through my ancestors' memories for useful information. I remember a similar incident, and watch the investigation through my Grandfather's eyes. Pale, spindly creatures swarm around me/him, and we draw his longblade, naked steel but for the alchemical sigils carved down its fuller. It was a frenzied battle, and the rest of the memory is frantic slashes and terrible screeching.

'Harvesters,' grumbles my Grandfather, clouds of light stirring within my necklace as he speaks. 'You'd know that if you studied the bestiary I compiled.'

I enter the glass doors and climb the stairs. I don't trust elevators anymore, not since a gremlin trapped me in one and almost dropped me fourteen floors. Rookie mistake. The city spreads out below the stairwell. The twinkling lights look pretty, but it's hard to enjoy the view when you know the city is malignant, infected with unholy demon larvae. On one hand, the mage-sight is a curse, binding you to a life that no sane person would ever choose. On the other, now that I possess it, I could never give it up for fear of the invisible horrors that surround us.

It's in our blood. The first thing my Great-Grandmother asked me was 'Have you sired an heir?' And rightly so, it's a dangerous job. My eldest son will find out when I die and he comes of age. I only hope he doesn't hate me when he wears me around his neck.

The sight is like a torch. It reveals unseen things, but it also reveals you. It's a beacon to creatures of the dark places, and this is why we with 'the gift' have no choice but to leave our families and fight. We live in isolation. It's easy to save people when you have nothing to lose.

Floor 4. I emerge into an open plan office and hit the lightswitch. The ceiling squares spark one by one, plink plink plink. Desks stand in a grid. Sterile. This is still a crime scene, but all the blood is gone. I don't know if that's procedure or not. It doesn't seem likely.

I hear a ragged, inhaling shriek that carries on for far longer than human lungs could withstand.

'Keep calm and draw from experience,' says my Grandfather. I replay his encounter with the thin white monsters again. The memory is tinted blue and faceted like the necklace jewel.

'You should have made preparations,' scolds my Great-Grandmother. 'You do not take this seriously enough.' She'd been nagging me for a long time now about this, but frankly carrying around a belt of alchemical solutions and filling my pockets with holy artefacts was a pain in the neck. It's not a fighting style that I find intuitive.

My Grandfather however, was a master swordsman. He left me his argent longsword, and I dedicated myself to learning the art of swordplay, before it was unmade in a particularly harrowing encounter with an entropy spirit. No other blade ever felt quite the same.

These days, I have a more hands-on approach. I think Dad would approve, but he's being characteristically silent. Still, I know he's watching.

The creatures crawl out of the woodwork, just as my Grandfather remembered them, but stained with blood, smeared around their mouths and painting their long talons and grasping avian hands. Their veins stand out like wires, a red so dark it's almost black. They have tiny black eyes on the sides of their bulbous white heads, but their large slitted nostrils flare and they all tilt their heads towards me.

'They're fast,' advises Grandfather. 'try to stay out of reach if you can. You really ought to invest in a new weapon of your own.'

'He's not wrong. In the meantime, use your environment. Demons can no more survive a sixty foot fall than anyone else,' offered Great-Grandma.

I make a swift gesture, tracing the sigil of agility and reflex in the air, and then dart to my closest opponent. I pummel it with my fists, and its skull is crushed by the time I spin around to meet another. I block it's wild swipe with an Aegis block, a technique I learnt from my Great-Grandmother. The first two fingers extended from my fist, a faint shimmering buckler appears on the back of my hand for a fraction of a second, saving me from those fierce, vicious claws.

'Good form,' she says, approvingly.

I throw my attacker through the window into the night, and listen to it howl before its abrupt end. I punch another harvester and cave its face in. My fist is tattooed with the arcane symbol of purity and strength. It's like a Magnum. Two more charge me down, screaming. I hit one with my palm (and the rune of justice thereupon), and break the other one's jaw with a plain old elbow.

'Watch out!' shouts a gruff voice.

I roll sideways just in time to avoid a leaping demon.

'Thanks Dad,' I say breathlessly as I plant my foot in the monster's ribs.

They're all around me now, I can barely keep up with their attacks to block them. I conjure a circle barrier around myself to give myself some time to breathe.

More hellspawn crawl out of the shadows. This is a hive. I don't know how I'm going to get out of here.

'You'll be fine son, just remember what we've taught you. You're worth one thousand of these bastards.'

I wreath my hands in sacred fire, kindling it with my breath. I can do this.