“What is it?”
“Runes, instruments of power,” Bingwen replied. “I haven’t seen any like these. They have a connection to several planes of existence, and…well, I only heard about these from my grandfather. I thought they were things that were made up or something.”
Axle had no idea what he meant, but he could tell that the man was impressed, and shocked as well. Whatever the runes were, they were powerful, and that was bad. “So, what does it mean? Any idea what Kanai was trying to do here?”
“I would have figured it out if you weren’t asking questions every minute. I’m trying to understand what I’m looking at.”
Axle frowned and took a step back, looking at the man. He walked over to the edge of the trap door in front of the altar and looked over the edge.
The sorcerer raised a hand and a few lines of smoke began to emanate from his hands, spreading across the runes. Once it began getting into them, they glowed brightly.
Bingwen then drew all of the light from the runes back into his hand. Using the same hand, he reached for the platform and touched it. The same force that had sent Axle and the others flying just a few hours before emanated again, sending Bingwen and Axle across the cave.
Axle slammed into a boulder, smashing it into bits. Bingwen managed to float to a stop before he hit the wall, but was dazed badly by the force of the blast. Axle rubbed the back of his neck, hurt by the impact. He looked up at Bingwen, watching the man slowly drop to the ground.
“Jeez, could I get a warning first?” Axle asked.
“Sorry,” Bingwen replied, brushing some loose sand that had dropped onto his jacket from the force of the blast. “This is bad.”
“What is it?” Axle asked as he began walking back to the altar, a little apprehensive of the place, just in case it fired out energy again.
“I have no idea what this is, or who was here at the time. They’re older than even the earliest sorcerers that I know about. But what I can say is that…this is incredibly powerful,” Bingwen said with a gasp.
“Yeah, well, I figured that part out already. It only makes sense for Kanai to be after something that’s powerful.”
“You don’t understand, I think he got it already,” Bingwen replied, looking at Axle. “This place was made to imbue certain objects with an ungodly amount of power.”
Axle looked at the platform and shook his head. When Kanai vanished, he hadn’t taken anything with him. Everything looked the same. “When he left, unless he was able to draw the power out and into himself, I’m certain he didn’t take anything, because it was the same when he left as it was when I entered.”
Bingwen shook his head. “No, taking that sort of power into a physical body, even a demon, would be too much for a single entity to hold. It would have killed him. Maybe he tried to do that and it rejected him, and that’s why he had to teleport away, to save himself. But, right now there is nothing here. Either he returned to get it, or someone else got it the moment he left.”
Axle looked at the platform, wondering if they were too late. If Kanai already had the source of power, then he had already become twice the threat he was before, and now it would take more than the dragons to be able to take him down. He saw the look of fear and shock on Bingwen’s face and tried to swallow the fear he felt rising in him.
“What are we going to do now?” Axle asked the sorcerer, not sure what the next step would be.
“Well,” Bingwen replied, looking to the runes. “First, I need to figure out where the power is. If it is as raw as I know it is, I should be able to track it down, but I’ll need some time. Once I find it, we’ll make a plan on how we can confine it.”
“What if we can’t?” Axle asked.
“Yeah, well…Kanai wins, and humans are basically fucked.”
Chapter 5 - Axle
Axle left Bingwen alone in the cave, as he needed time to understand the nature of the energy, and also because he was tired of the sass he was getting from the sorcerer. He took his motorcycle and drove away from the site, heading toward his place. He stopped for a moment, and looked out at the city.
If he stayed close to Natalie, he would be able to keep a closer eye on her, to make sure she didn’t end up hurting herself. He drove to a nearby motel, close to her home, and paid for a single room where he spent the night asleep. It was too far away for him to be able to pinpoint any sounds from her home, but it was close enough for him to be there first thing come morning.
Leaving his bike parked outside, he headed to the house next door to Natalie’s, jumping up onto the roof secretly, and listening in on Natalie. The sound of the couple in the house below having sex filled his ears, making it a little hard for him to focus. He jumped across so he could listen better, and could hear Natalie getting ready for work.
A few minutes later, she walked out of the building, fully dressed and ready for work. She walked over to her car and dropped into the driver’s seat, listening to music through her earphones. Axle smiled to himself, seeing that she was actually doing a lot better than he had expected.
He slid off the roof, rushed over to his motorcycle, and started the engine, driving quickly through the suburbs to catch up to her. He stopped a few vehicles away from her as she drove into the city. She took a left turn and stopped at the city library. He parked and walked in after her, browsing the shelves.
Axle followed Natalie, his eyes trained on her as she walked. Trailing his eyes down to her ass, he noted how nice it looked, and chuckled to himself. He had been giving her a lot of compliments in his head, and her large behind wasn’t just him being nice. It looked great, especially in the green dress she wore that accentuated her curves.
He watched as she began searching through the catalogs, picking out books on monsters and myths. Axle frowned. She was doing exactly what he had told her not to do. Axle ran a hand through his hair. It would start small, but soon she would be looking to find more and more, and that would lead to issues that would endanger her.
Axle walked to the far end of a table and grabbed the closest book he could find. He took a seat with a direct line of sight to her, so they would lock eyes the moment she looked up at him.