Faust: Issue Five: Most Dangerous Book Ever Read

Acid rained down from the sky, dissolving fiery puppet-soldiers. Fiery locusts chased after vampires and half dead ninjas. Hurricanes, full of razors and other sharp edges, captured and tore apart hellhounds. Giant frogs came down upon soldiers and monks, croaking loudly and eating them. The trees came alive, disemboweling whoever was near. The ground beneath swallowed the undead, and clouds of semi-conscious smoke tore through shape-shifting demons. It was insanity mixed with carnage, stirred in with a little chaos, and left to cool in the elixir of madness.

And it was all because of Faust’s father.

Felix Faust levitated above the renewed temple that once held the Eternity Book. The Eternity Book was the earthly representation of another book, one made by a cosmic entity named Destiny, and made substantial by Merlin, the greatest wizard of the Medieval Age. Destiny was one of the truly immortal Endless, and his book held within it the secrets of the universe. Felix now held a fraction of that power in his hands. And that power was great. Golden rings from the castle had levitated around his father, while Felix rained destruction all around the valley they were in. As the cacophony of screams grew louder, Felix seemed to grow happier.

Selma, one of two of Faust’s current allies, rested by him. Her abaya was tattered, though still covering her. She held in her hand the Scimitar of Suleiman the Great, and she had the fierceness of a lion when it came to combat. They needed that fierceness while battling all of the denizens of the shadow community who had arrived at the valley to get the Eternity Book. One would think that we’d band together to take on Dad, Faust thought, but they all seem to be caught in this increasing rage and chaos. Jason Blood, his other ally, was elsewhere, battling demons and trying to give Selma and Faust a chance to recover.

“What can we do?” Selma asked.

“How should I know?” Faust replied.

“He’s your father isn’t he? Don’t you know his tactics?”

“Listen, lady,” Faust said, sending a mana burst at a hail of knives and exploding hummingbirds before they got to him. “All I know is that he’s cocky and he makes really bad omelettes. Maybe you can tell me something we can do against that book.”

Selma took a moment to catch her breath, and then slashed a vampire soldier who was on fire. She positioned herself back-to-back with Faust. “I can’t do that.”

“You can’t do that? Does devastation on the biblical level mean anything to you?”

“The only thing we were taught to do in my order was how to prevent the seizure of the book. It is not own job to stop it or destroy it. It is too important to destroy.” Her voice was near absolute. If there was any way to avoid destroying the book, she’d go down that path. Faust would either have to play along or strike when ready. All of this destruction had to end. But first, they had to actually get the book. “There has to be another way to it. Besides, as far as I know, it could be indestructible.”

“Isn’t that just great?” Faust said flatly.

Lunatic hellhounds crashed around the two of them. Their skin rippled and melted, and their bones began to shift and break beneath. In moments, they began to rise up onto their hind legs and take on a human-like form. Their demonic, dog-like faces became black masks, and their humanoid bodies were covered in black tattoos. They were the Hounds of the Death God, Nergal.

“Your sacrifice to our Lord will ensure our victory and return our champion Meslamta-Ea to our sides,” the leader barked, pointing a clawed finger at Faust. “Your blood will enrich our souls.”

Faust charged his mana as much as possible, an indigo energy flowing from his fists. “Sorry, but I’m off the menu tonight, fellas.” He blasted the closest one, and then another one that was creeping up behind him. “Why do all you demon bastards want to eat me? First Etrigan, and now you Cujo rejects. Am I covered in teriyaki sauce?”

Blood-red sigils appeared on the foreheads of the dog-like demons. They pulsed slowly, and soon the eyes of the soldiers went black and empty. Their bodies became still, rigid and awkward; as if they were being moved by a puppet master. A howl of pain ripped through all of them as their bodies began to squeeze together and burn; from the inside. They dropped, one by one, their flesh cooking internally. One man stepped through the smoke coming from the fallen corpses: Jason Blood. “We’re going to have to check that out later,” Blood said grimly.

“Check what?” Selma said.

“If Faust is covered in teriyaki sauce,” he replied. A weak but tired smile came across his face. “We’re going to have to work together to get that book. It’s not the way Merlin wanted it used. There’s got to be something we can do.”

“You have any ideas?” Faust asked.

“Not one.”

The iron vines around Felix’s son melted and morphed into a giant iron hand, and held Faust inside its fist. “Well, well, well,” Felix said, coming before his son. “I am surprised to see you here, Sebastian.”

Faust grimaced as pain went through his body. “I guess when you put a contract on someone’s life, especially your own son, you assume that they’re going to die. So hard to get good help these days,” Faust mocked. “By the way, only Mom gets to call me Sebastian.”

Felix laughed. “That humor. You get it from your mother, you know. Me, I was always a fan of the knock-knock jokes.” The giant fist came alive, turning and knocking heavily twice on the roof with Faust inside. After shaking Faust up a little, it returned back to normal. “You know, I have to say I’m really proud of what you’ve become. Where’d you learn that shadowmancer technique, by the way?”

“I tapped it from one of those Kali Cultists,” Faust choked out.

Felix chuckled. “’Tapping’…that wonderful talent of yours. Too bad you can’t keep the techniques you steal. Oh, well. By the by, you’ve come a long way from the pathetic infant you used to be.”

Faust frowned. “I guess that’s why you felt it was alright to sell my soul, eh? I wasn’t good enough to inherit the ‘glory’ of the Faust name.”

Felix walked around the giant fist, slowly. Though Faust couldn’t see him, he could hear him. Hear him grinning because he was enjoying the power. “It wasn’t about you, m’boy! It was about me!”

“You’ve been watching too many daytime talk shows, Pop. Lay off Maury and Jerry Springer.”

The sounds of his steps were loud against the rooftop as he began to come around. His smile vanished and became something darker when he spoke again. “Long ago, I was one of the most powerful wizards of ancient Egypt. Maybe of all Africa. There was not a person alive who didn’t fear the mention of my name. Almost like that Voldercort or Moldermort character from those books the children read. But a time of heroes came around. For some reason, it seems that, at some point in every era, a group of specially-gifted beings gather together to face the evils of the world. Quite sickening if you ask me. But…I was defeated… by certain individuals…”

“You were ‘defeated’? That’s it? I want to hear about that part, Dad. The big bad warlock of ancient Egypt can tell me about how great his reputation is, but all he can say at the bad part is that he was ‘defeated’? I think you’re leaving out the details. You’re glorifying yourself. I bet you weren’t even defeated by a group of good wizards…” Faust said, smiling slyly. “How many was it really? An army of two? One? A rookie? A little boy who happened to pick up a wand and point it at you? Enough with the fairy tale,” he said coyly. “You’re a joke, Dad. You were a joke then, you’re a joke now, and you’ll always be a –“

“SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH!”

Faust’s brows arched upward. Felix’s lip began to quiver in a rage that had been bottled up for years. “Shazam hated the Seven Deadly Sins. He preached against them constantly, and I represented one of the worst, the sin that caused the angels to fall: Pride. So to preserve Shazam’s innocence, Nommo offered to use his Flame of Life (which I wanted) to rip my soul to shards. Using my leftover power, Shazam encased Pride in his damned Rock. Far as I know, Nommo vanished under the cost of his spell, and I was banished to an inescapable ethereal realm for countless millennia. Until I escaped…

“Something happened in the 1950s that caused my soul to escape. Something happened that opened the door for my return…but I was weak; only a shade of my former self.” Felix’s eyes were lost in sorrow and painful memories. When he spoke though, he was back to his former self. “Suffice it to say that I wasn’t the same man I used to be. I was barely a man…All I was able to do was trick a fool named Dekan Drache into performing a ritual…made him think that I was a lost god...and then I destroyed his soul and took his body.

“This is how I became what you see before you now: a warlock who’s not as powerful as a mage’s apprentice or a novice because my aura didn’t match Drache’s chakras. I tried many ways to regain my power, mostly through the story that inspired my name. But nothing worked. And after the years, and after I had you, I saw an opportunity. I figured, perhaps, selling my soul wasn’t enough: my worthless soul had been flash-fried and put together again halfway. But yours…you were an innocent. Pure and fresh.

He paused, an expression of scorn and envy in his eyes as he looked his son up and down. “Imagine how enraged I was when Nebiros, the demon I bargained with, gave you the power that I was bargaining for. That he gave you the potential to reach the power that I possessed in ancient Africa.”

“He was a demon, Dad,” Faust replied. You weren’t much of a saint either. Your only son lost a soul, not a pacifier.”

“And yet you persevered!” Felix replied enthusiastically. “Out of thousands of innocents whose souls have been sold, you survived practically unharmed! Well...aside from feelings. But who needs emotions? You’ve become substantially stronger, where my power should have crippled you. Where my power should have ripped your small, fragile body apart, you instead became the world’s first infant wizard! And the first infant attuned for the rare art of the soul mage!”

“You cursed me and ruined my life, you arrogant bastard.”

Felix looked at his son carefully, and then shrugged him off. Others had begun to move, and Felix had noticed this. A blue glow floated above all of Felix’s enemies, and then the gravity above them increased substantially until they were pinned.

Felix grinned deviously, and then continued his story. “Anyway, you can imagine how upset your mother was when she found out I sold your soul. With a baby on the way, she took you and ran as far as she could.”

“How dysfunctional a family we are. We deserved a reality show more than the Osbournes did.”

Felix gave his son a look of disgust for the interruption. “You know, your generation has the attention span of a goldfish. You lack the ability to appreciate things as they unfold. With your Q-Bert video games and your Samurai Turtles cartoons and portable record players...”

Faust shrugged as best as he could. “No, Dad, I blame it on MTV. Who would have thought that music on TV, instead of a radio, would be so addictive?” His body was feeling very bad after being stuck in the same position for so long. “Well, from here on I know the story. You continue to be a washed-up, C-List threat, and I grow up without emotions and forever alienated by my peers. What I really want to know is why did you try to kill me? Selling my soul wasn’t good enough for you?”

It was Felix’s turn to shrug. “You helped me get this far. I’m ashamed to say it, but strangely I’m even prouder. Without you, I wouldn’t have succeeded in my planning.”

“What plans?”

“Plans that got me this book,” Felix said smiling, lifting the book up like a baby boy. “I worked with Darius, feeding him a lie that your soulless husk would be what was necessary to obtain the book. Lies about traps and such, you know. Then I put a hit on you myself to not only prove my allegiance, but ensure that you’d come looking for answers. Because, like your dead old father, you hate to be bothered. But I didn’t let you get foolishly killed; I forced that dead acrobat wraith to feed you a few hints about your quest. While Darius was concentrating on you, I was able to make a shadow clone of myself that Darius foolishly allowed to get burned alive before investigating the corpse. He was foolish enough to assume that I was desperate enough to partner with him and not consider the deceit within; I’ve learned my lessons with making bargains.”

Felix walked over to Darius, who was squirming underneath the iron vines and gravity. “You hear that, you self-righteous pig? We live in a world where people become wolves, others return from the dead, and where deception and illusion are as integral to the craft as bats are to baseball. I knew you were going to betray me the moment we spoke. Did you think I wouldn’t consider it?”

Darius’s voice came out in a broken whisper, “I never assumed…you had the… cunning…”

“Well a pity for you,” Felix said quiet and darkly.

A dark cloud began to shift over Darius, and soon a dozen silver imps had formed and begun to maul Darius’s body. Darius screamed in agony, coughing up blood, and swearing to get Felix.

Felix had already forgotten him and moved on. “That is the grand story, my son. You were the key to my story because you were my decoy. Instead of having idiots like Zard and the Gentleman Ghost spitting poetry at my heels, they were distracted hunting down Mr. Blood as a favor to Darius, because I convinced him Blood was working with you and necessary to capture the book. Darius wasted his extended resources, making deals to hunt down and destroy Ms. Tolon’s Eternity Order while I spent my time following the destruction and divining the true facts. I came here to the Temple of Eternity hours before you all did, deciphering spells and breaking elite traps with my low-level magic. And I finally did it!” he said, raising the book above him. “I am the most powerful man in the world!”

“Men are so overrated.”