Merlin 3:57 Outnumbering the Day
Ophiuchus stands to let a new arrival have his seat, but shakes the newcomer’s hand and transfers most virulent contagion, he begins to see thru the eyes of the poisoned man. The vision of death is the same for all the undead, dying with their eyes closed.
The convulsions of the victim are distraction from the blackening eyes, many gather to assist and in Merlin’s approach his knife. A glimpse of a rapier dagger and Ophiuchus enters rage and infectious desire, his eyes glowing red his death magic turns the dying to carnivorous demons, entering home after home to rip and tear and mar and spoil the living, the wounded begin growing against repression, the dead are not dead.
Troy follows them where they lead, trying to save as many of the defenseless in the commotion as able. Agnar, roaming the streets finds and fights Ophiuchus, but a hand of dirty nails not infectious as he shows a symbol of protection carved into the arm from once the bones and the serpent devil escapes the slow giant. The phoenix walks the streets slowly, as if hunting, investigating, wary of corners and blithe to the infected, the cursed burn on contact like dead leaves to embers, it worries of larger monster. Troy kills a hexed cannibal only to be bitten in the leg, the phoenix shows him that its feathers purge the potential infection of black magic like water in the wind. His inamorata Kylesa watches keenly.
Digr, returning to the city, encounters werewolves, coyly they watch, spitefully they wait, then launch at him and it is all effort given to sink them and escape. They tear at the ground and bit each other to pull themselves to ground and mend when running once more.
Sino carves runes into his arms, again a primal disharmonious link with fondness of blood, a city soldier thinks the self-carving is the cause of all anarchy and frivolously encounters a specific truth in concerns. Sino deeply finds humor in murder, ever-trying to impress death’s messengers. In doing so Lilith brings her own message rising from a pool of burning blood, fervent dementia and courtesan of war, fewer precious moments are telling of elsewhere, as many soldiers spear her Sino watches with genuine intrigue. The infected walk down the street, Merlin walks up it, thru them to find disaster, cutting them down where he must with the touch of light, close enough to face danger if gnashed. The phoenix flies from the werewolves with Troy barely holding as up the walls they try to follow and Kylesa in flight to follow. At the rooftop the vampire scouts attack, one of the werewolves does not escape death and returns a paler, more fragile human without transition. From the summit they see Katina and Braden, he uses silver to create intense flashes that turn the physical into ashes, she absorbs the vacant energy and calls lightning to her aid, joined one thunders, one flashes.
Lilith and Merlin apart are drawn to the noise, Sino and Ophiuchus apart go to higher ground. Braden and Katina siege strong against the night, as the numbers of the infected surround him he tosses a handful of coins spinning thru the air, the explosions scattering across them blows holes into buildings, connecting the blasts is Katina’s lightning that washes Lilith’s skin without harm. She walks between the flying explosions as doorways of fire, soon closest to them emerging from burning wind. She waves her magic hand and the infected fall lifeless and deathless.
Lilith: Merlin! We have rules about dancing with the dead!
Merlin: Calm your minions of hell!
Lilith: Neither here nor there nor mine!
Close proximity three infected approach her, again they fall where they are cast to sleep. She speaks to Merlin.
Merlin: They are infectious and feel I to a trap for me is beset.
Lilith: Only amongst silence from the dead do men dare think, find Sino, my beasts will have their bones.
Merlin departs and Lilith stands, smelling the fires of death and plague of man in the air. The cursed rise and approach her as if servants of the underworld, three from earlier whom two of the left and right fall as souls to the underworld without redemption, the centermost she graces her fingers across his face. He heals moribund, a head hung unbecomingly in the tread. The wind passes under the rain-soft clouds, thru the breeches of sullen boughs of a surrounding white oak forest, the cursed man begins healing, curing him hither incarnate the crack of bone to tear a breach, she gathers the otherwise idle mind and forces him to watcher her lick his lifeless heart.
She bites into the heart and begins a roar of many as the demon mother of all werewolves, several of the pack arrive.
Juan: What is it, den-mother?
Lilith tears the head from the dead.
Lilith: These are puppets, of something that has been near Sino!
Tiw: We will hunt.
Lilith: The same skin as these, but eyes like mine, find it alive and alive bring it to me!
Sharp and alert hunters their shoulders raise and claws dig into the soils and begin their hunt.
Belladonna spies from around a wall with Varin, Lilith notices her.
Lilith: Come to me, daughter of the order.
Bella: Mother of all poisons?
Lilith: Why do you cower at the border to freedom?
Bella: “Flora kept by Fauna” I pare the tree to the underworld, but I am too weak to survive the onslaught.
Lilith: Can you consume contagion?
Bella: Yes.
Lilith: Then save your friend.
Lilith walks by him and his veins become black as he foams at the mouth, she walks into a burning wall to vanish. Bella begins to absorb Varin’s demise, she grows strong with him, her eyes brightened by the light, her vision darkened by the night, her skin healthy burns into heat and her sleeves bother her so she burns them, her power mighty surge preternatural fueled by the air, he chokes and gasps returning to life. Barefoot thru the street with eyes of bright darkness, roots of poison fill the earth from each step.
She heals who she can and they fall cured and torn from lucidity, those who she cannot fully heal cry writhing at the moon that their lives will succumb to the disease and as their eyes begin to cloud of carnal insanity, as such gathers a fog which causes them to dry rot like old trees and fall into the mist. The breath of the vale between land and sky, as wind searches trees the werewolves search streets, and immune are still slowed by the outbreak of the undead, which has Merlin returning to Ana and Nick.
Merlin: Are you okay?
Ana: If it stays warm we might survive!
Merlin: Who are these men?
Nick: With both sides burning, this might be the only place left from her, when they noticed that she was keeping us safe…
Merlin: They came to protect her.
Nick: Nation men, but not wizards.
Ana: And not for long! We’ll need rain or relocate!
Merlin: How long?
Ana: If I have this baby in a burning building in the asshole of the universe I’m naming after me and killing you both! Rain, Merlin!
Merlin suggests the men give him distance as he begins to let tattoos glow, to clear streets and whet fires.
/ch