Mark of the Beast, Part Eight

“Any ideas on how to kill it?” I demanded. Akshainie and I turned our focus to the doorway, which we hoped would narrow enough to bottleneck our attackers and help us deal with them.

“I don’t know! I know great-grandma had notes about that, but I never got around to reading them, and I don’t exactly know what we have to work with here!” he answered, pulling out a much older-looking notebook and flipping through it.

“Your great-grandmother was taking notes on how to kill avatars of elder gods?” I threw a fireball into the darkness of the hallway and saw it break up as a host of small, shambling creatures burned or were thrown aside. They were getting close.

“Well, she was actually trying to figure out how to kill gods themselves, but it seems relevant.”

“What the hell is going on with your family?!” Akshainie yelled. A black, amorphous figure leapt out of the hallway at her, sharp paws extended out, and she sliced it in half in the air. “Why are you mortals trying to kill gods?”

“Do you really think we have time for that right now?” he demanded. Akshainie growled as three more creatures entered the doorway and we began attacking. “I mean, shit. Okay. We have, what, swords? A fire mage or something? Is that special fire of some kind?”

“It’s hellfire,” I muttered, throwing another fireball into the hallway and kicking a little creature back.

“Hell—are you fucking kidding me? You’re a priest with hellfire powers? It’s like a goddamn Livejournal story in here.”

“Look, kid, you got any ideas, or what?”

“Is that a thing? Do priests just do that?”

“Matteson!” He knelt down behind us and poked at the flesh of one of the now-dead beings swarming the doorway.

“The Black Goat of the Woods With A Thousand Young,” he said, softly. “Okay! Okay, look, I think she’s made of the same substance these things are, she probably spawned them.”

“Are you going somewhere with this?” Akshainie demanded, pressing forward a bit and cutting down more of the creatures. One managed to get over the pile and bite her arm, and I burned it off and then touched her swords, igniting the blades. She smiled viciously at that and charged into the mob as I continued giving her cover fire.

“Hellfire is pretty impressive stuff. I think it can kill her, but we need to isolate her first.”

“From what? The horde?” I asked. He shook his head and punched a creature, sending it flying back toward Akshainie.

“From Shub-Niggurath. As long as she’s connected to the source, she’ll probably regenerate too fast. We need to sever the connection.”

“How do we do that?” He cracked his knuckles, flicked his cigarette butt aside, and started walking toward the avatar.

​“I think,” he said, slowly, “I just need to will it harder than she wills to be connected.”

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