I land behind Golem-Daria, my tail still arched.
Golem-Daria lurches down from the stage while taking a swipe at Lincoln with her club. Lincoln changes his baculum into a trident, spears the club, and wrests it from her grip with ease. His long sword strikes her upper thigh, getting in our first good hit of the battle. Golem-Daria roars. I smile from ear to ear.
That’s my guy, ladies and gentlemen.
Lincoln circles her, looking for another opportunity to strike. “You saw something when you leaped over her, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, there’s a face on her neck. What is that, anyway?”
Golem-Daria makes a few more lunges at Lincoln, trying to grab his neck with her thick hands. Lincoln dodges her attacks, but takes the chance to check out her neck. A long moment passes before he speaks again. “Drusus.”
My brain seems to go on pause. Suddenly, it’s obvious how Lady Daria survived. “Oh, man. She shape shifted to take Drusus inside her. That’s why she needed the veil. That’s pretty clever.” It makes her harder to fight, though. If we kill her; Drusus might be able to keep them both alive.
Lincoln’s thinking the same thing. “Let’s use Assault Plan Omicron.” I know what that one entails. We’ll stab the hearts of both demons at the same time.
“Got it.”
Lincoln and I rush into action. I make another frontal assault by jumping into the air. This time, Golem-Daria sees it coming. Even though she’s big as a barn and busy fighting Lincoln, she’s able to move out of the way. I land on my ass, which pisses me off.
Red light surrounds Golem-Daria as she transforms back into her temptress form. Lincoln still stands before her; I’m at her back. Even so, I don’t need to see her face to know that she’s working her lust demon wiles on my guy.
Too bad he’s an expert in that area.
Wave after wave of lust demon power rolls around us. Lincoln stares at Lady Daria, and for a second, there’s that blank puppy-dog look I used to see in Prescott’s face. Can she really cast one over on my guy?
Lincoln all-out laughs. “Nice try. But I already have a lust demon.”
My tail does a happy dance as Lincoln reignites his baculum into a long sword and stalks toward Lady Daria. Her leg is bleeding through her gown and she stands at an odd angle. Lincoln got a good hit in, so she’s not able to move any more. You’d think she would get a weapon, yet all Lady Daria does it clutch her veil more tightly against her shoulders.
Something inside me clicks. I know where Drusus is hidden. All those damned veils. He’s under them for sure.
With that, I know exactly how to end this.
Running forward, I grip Lady Daria’s long veil and cloak, tearing them away from her back. And there he is.
Drusus.
The dude is half dead and mostly rotting. A stench worse than anything I’ve ever known hits me straight in the face. All in all, Drusus is nothing more than a half torso merged into her back. I’m not one to feel sorry for demons—not for the evil ones, anyway—but my heart does go out to Drusus a little bit. He’s all mangy and green, more skeleton than man. In fact, I’m pretty sure this dude was the model for the Crypt Keeper.
I arch my tail over my shoulder. “Let’s do this.” And by ‘this,’ I mean skewer two hearts at the same time.
Lincoln raises his long sword. “Now!”
While Lincoln stabs Lady Daria from the front, I get Drusus from behind. There’s a gross squishing noise from my side and some greenish glop spurts on me. I guess that’s to be expected since Drusus was already pretty much dead. Still a little gross, though.
Lady Daria and Drusus fall over, dead. I’m about to ask if we should check them when they burst into flames. Within seconds, the two are fried down to nothing but a few bits of charcoal. I let out a long breath.
We did it.
I rush over to inspect the spot where the gurgling portal had opened up. There isn’t even any coin left over to deal with. Total battle bonus.
A second later, the Chapel comes back to life again. Everyone is freaking out, and so I take a page from Lincoln’s book and whistle super-loud. It’s one of those moves where I put my pinky and pointer finger on either side of my mouth and let go. The place falls silent. No one fucks with the battle bride when she makes that kind of noise.
“Here’s the deal,” I say. I step over to Aldred’s cage and lean against the steel bars. “Aldred is a dick. And Lincoln and I…” I pause, unsure what to say next. Beyond whistling and starting to order everyone around, I hadn’t really thought things through.
“We’re going to the courtroom, right now.” Lincoln reignites his baculum and points it at Aldred. “Guess who’s coming with us?”
Alfred whimpers. “But this is all a misunderstanding.”