The Marauder Read online

  The Marauder

  The Mirror Wars,

  Episode One

  Sean M. Hogan

  The Marauder

  Copyright © 2017 by Sean M. Hogan.

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For information contact :

  http://seanmichaelhogan.weebly.com/

  Book Formatting by Derek Murphy @Creativindie

  Cover design from © Captblack76 | Dreamstime.com

  ISBN:

  ASIN: B073N7QF93

  First Edition: July 2017

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  CONTENTS

  The Marauder

  Prologue

  Episode One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  The Crow Behind the Mirror

  E-Mail List

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Prologue

  A dark, sinister shadow looms over the galaxy. A mysterious tyrant, who hides his face behind a skull mask, has plunged the seven worlds into darkness. Only a fallen warrior queen, donning a purple cloak and wielding an enchanted sword, stands in his way.

  Throughout the universe, Michelle Lionmane wages a secret war against the vile forces of the Black Sun. She fights for a future already lost, yet in a dire time without hope she struggles on. She is a slayer of monsters and demons, an assassin of dark lords and bloodthirsty despots, and a champion for the weak and helpless.

  She is the Marauder.

  Episode One

  The Maiden and the Cowboy

  Chapter One

  Michelle prowled the black overgrown highway cloaked in deep purple, slinking between two endless rows of abandoned cars. Most of the vehicles were nothing more than skeleton husks of empty rusted frames. Though a few still harbored their passengers, now shriveled up corpses with hollow eye sockets, their grimacing skulls resting against the dashboards and steering wheels. There were bodies scattered along the road as well, most curled into fetal positions or still desperately clutching their loved ones. Her left hand never strayed far from the hilt of her broadsword as she advanced, her pale gray eyes scanning over the bodies for the slightest movement. Even a modern graveyard carried dangers and the dead rarely rested for long.

  “Darkness shrouds this vile place,” a voice spoke, high-pitched and monstrously inhuman.

  Michelle raised her head, brushed the loose strands of blonde hair from her eyes, and poked her purple hood up from her face. “I can see.”

  Swirling storm clouds blanketed the crimson sky, lightning and thunder raged in the distance, raining ash and snow.

  “Where are we?” asked the voice.

  “Earth.” She stopped at a corroded license plate laying in a pothole. Frowning, she knelt down to pick up the plate and examine it. She brushed off a layer of snow and ash. Some letters were still legible: I, the heart symbol, N, and Y. “Just outside of New York City, or what’s left of it. It’s gotten worse since our last visit.”

  She rose to her feet and set her sights ahead. A weathered George Washington Bridge stretched on over a frozen Hudson River toward a decaying city.

  “Be wary,” said the voice. “Danger is near.”

  She tossed the plate aside. “Isn’t it always?”

  “We mean it. Eyes alert. Ears trained. Something is coming.”

  Then Michelle heard it—the shuffling of feet behind her. She spun to meet the source, unsheathing her sword and taking a fighting stance. “Something is already here.”

  Out from the shadows of the rusted cars, a Doberman stalked forward. The mutated purebred hopped onto the hood of a former Porsche and fixed its unnatural yellow glowing eyes on Michelle.

  She inched her feet apart, widening her stance. “Nice doggy.”

  The Doberman growled, parting its fangs as hot white breath leaked up from its jaws.

  She sighed. “Why couldn’t you have been a poodle?”

  The dog’s head split apart like the blooming of a tulip, but instead of petals unfolding there were just countless rows of needle-sharp teeth. A long spiny tongue slithered out from its throat hole before it let out a high-pitched shriek.

  The corpses in the cars around Michelle started to stir. Their hollow eyes lit up with beams of yellow light.

  “It calls to them,” said the voice. “And the dead listen.”

  The ghouls moaned as they picked themselves up and out of the cars, lurching toward Michelle.

  “I gathered as much,” she replied, taking one ghoul’s head off with a swing of her blade.

  More ghouls lumbered her direction, threatening to box her in.

  “Should we run or fight?” asked the voice.

  “Both sound nice about now.” She sliced through a few ghouls, hacking them to pieces as she made her dash to the bridge.

  She was stopped by a furious gust of cold wind that blasted a couple of the cars in front of her aside like toys.

  The wind swirled into a twister, thick mist pouring out.

  Michelle shielded her eyes with her forearm. “What now?”

  The wind slowed to reveal a masked phantom figure hovering above the road. The Wraith’s long pale kimono flapped in the breeze. A simple, bone white mask with slanted eyeholes concealed her face. She leered down at Michelle and let loose a cackle.

  “Run, child,” said the Wraith. “Run from the light. For the darkness hunts, tonight. And we hunger for your flesh.”

  “You’re not on my list,” said Michelle, thrusting her blade at her foe, “but you can leave your name and number and I’ll get back to you as soon as the next available spot opens up.”

  A rogue ghoul attempted a sneak attack while Michelle’s back was turned. She sent it flying back with a swift kick, knocking down a few more corpses as it crashed through the gathering horde.

  “Don’t be rude, gentlemen,” she snapped back over her shoulder. “Ladies first.”

  The Wraith conjured a scythe in her right hand from the swirling air. She raised her left hand, exposing a tattoo of a black sun.

  Michelle gritted her teeth. “So, you’re one of the Chosen.”

  “Marauder,” the Wraith bellowed, her black stringy hair whirling wildly in the wind. “My master has sent me to bring back your head.”

  “Oh? Well, maybe I’ll bring him yours instead.” Michelle held out her sword. The steel lit up with glorious blue light. Her eyes glowed and her cape flapped as the magical aura shrouded her body. “I’ll even do him the courtesy of gift wrapping it with a purple bow.”

  A speeding shadow flickered over her as the mutated Doberman lunged for her. She spun to meet it, catching the torso with her sword and severing the lower half from the body. But this did little to stop the momentum of the top half, the part with the sharp teeth.

  The beast knocked her flat on her back, pinning her arms with its two front legs. Talons shot out of its paws and embedded into the asphalt, ensnaring her wrists.

  Michelle struggled to reach her sword—which had slipped from her grasp from the jolt of the fall—but came up inches too short. “What did I just say?”

  The Doberman’s head split apart again, raining down a spray of green acid as its long, viper-like tongue
wiggled in the air.

  She shifted her head just in time to dodge a stray squirt of acid. “This is why I’m a cat person.”

  The Wraith hovered above with her scythe raised high, laughing wickedly. “Yes, good, my pet. Hold her still while I retrieve the head.”

  “Can we eat her?” asked the voice.

  “Quiet,” Michelle snapped.

  “Our hunger grows. It has been too long since our last meal. We must feast.”

  Then the throbbing pain started up, shooting pure agony straight from her bandaged left hand. She let a holler escape then bit down on her lip, muffling the rest. “Shut up or I’ll cut you off and feed you to the dog.” Her left hand twitched like mad, the fingers twisting on their own accord.

  “Dogs are tasty. Feed us dogs, yes?”

  She clenched her eyes shut as the shadow of the Wraith cast her face in gloom. “No, moron. I said I’ll feed you to it.”

  “Oh… Not good. We wouldn’t like that very much. The other way we like best.”

  “Then shut your damn mouth.” She formed a defiant fist with her left hand.

  The Wraith peeled back Michelle’s hood with her sharp red nails. “End of the line, Marauder. Squirm and I can’t promise only a single cleave.”

  Michelle spat in her face. “Screw you.”

  The Wraith scooped up a fist full of Michelle’s long blonde hair and yanked it back with force. “But first, I will take a souvenir for myself. My master cannot have all the spoils, after all.” She glided her scythe across a lock of hair, cutting the strands one by one. “Such pretty silky hair must be cherished and—”

  “Oh, no.” Michelle’s eyes widened with fury. “Not the hair, bitch. No one touches the hair.” She relaxed her left hand. “I changed my mind, bon appetit, Lefty.”

  The Wraith tilted her head to one side like a curious puppy. “Lefty?”

  A high-pitched squeal resounded with penetrating power.

  The bandages on Michelle’s left hand were sucked in as a wind tunnel erupted from a hole in her palm. No, not a hole, but a mouth with a full set of spiny teeth. Above the mouth, one moss-green snake eye with a copper slit widening in the middle.

  “Feeding time,” shouted Lefty—the grinning face on the hand—with wicked glee, licking its lips with a drool coated tongue.

  The upper half of the Doberman was the first to be caught up in the wind tunnel, compressing and contorting as it was slurped down like a wet ramen noodle.

  With her arms free, Michelle retrieved her sword and, with one clean slash, severed the Wraith’s scythe and arm at the elbow.

  The Wraith screamed bloody murder, clutching her gushing stump.

  Michelle rose to her feet and thrust her left hand forward. “Keep a seat warm in hell for your master, monster. He’ll be joining you shortly.”

  The Wraith was sucked inside the hand, her bones snapping and folding like origami as she was turned into a bite-sized snack.

  Lefty chewed and swallowed before letting loose a rancid burp. “Mmmm, tastes like chicken, oysters, and toasted tater tots.” He picked the last bits from between his teeth with a brush of his tongue.

  “You’re gross, you know that, right?” asked Michelle, looking down at her left palm.

  “Gross is in the eye of the beholder,” replied Lefty.

  “No, it’s not.” Then the pain struck her again. She keeled over, falling to her knees, panting and sweating as her heart threatened to beat out of her chest. No, not again. Not now. She clutched her head. Get out of my brain! A thousand vile whispers sounded off in her mind, tormenting her with chants made with foreign tongues.

  The ghouls started advancing once again, hundreds of yellow eyes swaying back and forth in the darkness, their moans turning into a chorus of horrors.

  “Michelle,” Lefty shouted. “What’s wrong?”

  She pushed back her sleeves. Dozens of black sun tattoos coiled up her forearms, worming like the vines of a thorn bush. No, no, no.

  “Michelle, your neck… its covered with suns.”

  She clawed at her throat. It’s too soon.

  “The Mark,” said Lefty. “You have to resist the call of the Chosen.”

  “I’m trying,” she yelled. “But it keeps getting harder.” Each new one, each new Chosen devoured by Lefty and added to the collection, felt like another brick stacked on the heavy pile already crushing her heart.

  They were encircled by a wall of gnashing teeth and reaching decaying hands.

  “You must. Or else, give in. Better than death.”

  “Never!” She clutched the hilt of her sword. “I will never become one of his slaves.” Her blade lit up. “Fire,” she whispered. The sword was shrouded in flames. “I’d rather burn!”

  She swung the flaming sword, setting the surrounding horde ablaze. The ghouls shrunk back, wilting like dying winter roses in the summer heat.

  With a wrap of her enchanted cloak, she ran for an opening—plowing through the burning ghouls toward the bridge.

  ***

  Michelle hopped from one car rooftop to another, narrowly avoiding a legion of grasping hands and snapping jaws of the undead, in a frantic sprint to the end of the George Washington Bridge. The finish line was in sight but her heart and lungs were threatening to give out at any moment. Her vision blurred and brain fog set in as the pain gave way to the sensation of weightlessness. She was moving, she knew that much for sure, but she was no longer in the driver’s seat. She was a passenger, riding shotgun in the human vehicle known as the Marauder.

  Keep moving, she reminded herself as if she had forgotten, I have to keep moving. One foot in front of the other. Focus on what’s ahead of you. Don’t look back. Don’t lose sight of your goal. A sharp mind is as important as a sharp blade—maybe more so. One misstep will get you killed, Michelle. It will get everyone killed. But her thoughts drifted all the same.

  Atlas, I’m sorry. I tried, I tried so damn hard. But in the end, I wasn’t strong enough. Atlas Fulbright had been the first Marauder. He was old before she was young. That image of him, a hulking man with broad shoulders leaning against his sword, remained burned into her memories. Just the thought of his oversized, thick, bushy white mustache twitching, the softness of his deep voice, as he lectured her brought a smile to her face. I couldn’t avenge you. He was her teacher and sole father figure after her parents were murdered. I couldn’t kill the man behind the skull mask. Fulbright fought valiantly till the end, right up until the dagger plunged into his heart. That day Michelle inherited the cloak and sword and one other thing. The watch.

  “Michelle,” Lefty’s voice rang out. “We’re running out of time.”

  Time. That was the truth of it. She was always running, chasing the clock, in pursuit of the spinning hands of fate. But no matter how hard she ran, time only sped faster. The future she fought so hard for—still fights for with her last struggling breaths—was in the past now. What lay ahead of her was the same as what lay behind, the dead and the dying. And the only thing that separated the two was one slip.

  Michelle landed on the hood of a red striped sports car, stumbling as she tried to keep her footing. A slew of undead arms swiped at her feet.

  One slip and it would be game over, magic cloak or not, they would keep clawing and digging until they reached bone.

  She leaped over a horde of ghouls, setting them ablaze with a swing of her sword, and landed on the hood of a muscle car with painted flames. But for every ghoul that fell, three more took its place.

  One slip and the whole universe would be doomed, billions lost to time. All because she couldn’t kill one man.

  She scrambled to keep her balance atop a minivan as the corpses swarmed, rocking it back and forth.

  One slip and she’d lose the only thing that kept her going. Hope. The tiniest sliver of hope that he was still alive. The weeping infant that was ripped from her small hands so long ago. The little brother who was stolen by the man with the skull mask.

  “The mirror
,” said Lefty. “We have to get to the mirror before midnight or else—”

  Then Michelle slipped.

  Her head landed hard on the windshield of a purple luxury car, the glass shattering into a messy, deformed spiral. She moaned a painful, pitiful sound.

  “Michelle,” shouted Lefty. “Get up. You have to keep moving.”

  “I know,” replied Michelle. But she didn’t move. It hurt too much. Everything hurt too much. And there was the ringing in her left ear, the spinning, and all the colors were blindingly bright. “Just give me five more minutes.”

  The ghouls lumbered forward, encroaching on her and the car.

  “We don’t have five minutes.”

  All she wanted now was to sleep, to forget her troubles along with her throbbing headache. She curled up and rested her head against the hood. Her heavy eyelids fluttered and the ghouls flickered in and out of darkness.

  Lefty crawled toward her face, a hand mimicking a tarantula, shouting something.

  She closed her eyes. Arthur, please wait a little bit longer. I’m going to be late…

  CRACK!

  Her eyes shot open.

  A twitching ghoul loomed over her body, the top of its skull missing and replaced with a snaking trail of smoke. It slumped down off of her and the hood of the car.

  CRACK! CRACK!

  Two more ghouls lost their heads, their brains and bone fragments showered the road.

  Michelle looked up and over the car. At the end of the bridge, a man armed with a rifle stood next to a station wagon. He honked the horn, waved to her, and shouted an inaudible cry before taking aim once again.

  CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!

  Three more corpses kissed the asphalt.

  “Michelle,” urged Lefty. “This is our chance. Move!”

  “I know,” she hollered back. “I’m up, I’m up.”

  She rolled off the hood and hit the road like a graceless drunkard, but thankfully she landed feet first. Slowly but steadily, she made her way forward. The ghouls dropped around her like mosquitos flying too close to a bug-zapper, sounding off in pops. She pushed against the cars for support and balanced herself with her sword and, with one last burst of her remaining strength, she reached the end of the bridge and the man.