Armageddon

by Erik Schubach

  I took a defensive stance as I glared at the monkey lizard, nudging my chin up, inviting him to attack. He was happy to oblige as he flung his arms wide, sending his own nearby allies tumbling around him as he charged at me.

  Being twice my height and easily five times my mass, he easily knocked aside the combatants as he came. I'm sure he just saw a weak little human girl... with a tail. What he didn't know was that I... am wolf.

  I dodged his first few swings by merely bobbing side to side, using my wolf speed and reflexes, giving his arms sharp hits with my batons to keep him overextending. Then I dug in with my front foot, using the same energy I used to fly to actually push me down hard to anchor me in place as my right leg flashed out to strike him halfway up his chest.

  Well, I was sort of aiming for his throat, but as I said, he was twice my height and I'm stuck in this stupid nineteen-year-old body. But it still had the desired effect with my wolf strength as he stumbled back, almost tripping over himself as he had to swing one hand back to the ground behind him to arrest his fall and stay on his feet.

  I was still spinning and came around with a roundhouse as my leg snapped out to catch him on his chin. He spun and went down before struggling to his feet. He reached up and wiped the blueish blood from his mouth and looked at it as I bladed my body my batons pointed down, one in front and one behind me as I told him with a wicked grin, “You're right, this is going to be fun.”

  He smiled widely and charged, more cautiously this time. Then we engaged in a series of rapid-fire strikes and kicks. We moved back and forth, each taking the initiative after trading a few blows, shoving the others around us away or killing them so we could face off.

  He lunged and took me off guard by feigning a kick, and one of his huge fists came swinging down on my shoulder and I growled and snapped my little fangs at him to get him to back off as I absorbed some of the impact by dropping into a roll. I lost a baton from the tingling fingers of a useless arm.

  I rolled into a three-point stance, my other baton pointed toward Lizzy Boy and growled as menacingly as I could, and to my ears, it sounded like a puppy tugging on a sock. Oh how I hate the Lost Boys, let me count the ways.

  He started to move toward me again to press his advantage, but then hesitated as I rolled my injured shoulder, bones making loud popping sounds as they moved back into place. I clenched my fist experimentally and smirked at his surprise. We wolves heal fast and are harder to kill than anyone might believe since our curse keeps us alive so we can suffer for all time.

  For the first time, he didn't look smug as I held my hand out and made a beckoning motion, curling my fingers toward me quickly. He looked around and grabbed the arm of one of his fallen comrades and with a sickening wet tearing sound, he tore it from the corpse and brandished it like a club as he charged.

  I heard human screams. Hell, I didn't have time for this chump. I pulled a Glock from inside my coat and fired once, and turned away to look for the source of the screams as the shocked look on his face went slack before he crumpled to the ground with a new, angrily bleeding third eye in the middle of his forehead.

  I holstered the gun, scooped up my second baton and collapsed them both as I took to the air, the enemy grasping at my feet as they closed the gap our fighting had made as I growled out, “And don't call me little girl.”

  I was sent tumbling through the air when a shock wave of power shook the world. I glanced over to see Hook and the Elder slinging incomprehensible amounts of magic at each other, as more shock waves rippled from them as they canceled each other out.

  I knew that the artifact, the hook on Wendy's arm was as powerful as an Elder, the prior Hook had held them off with it before calling the Nothing with it to prevent them from ever entering Neverland again. Masika had told us once that it held the power of creation itself, but was only as strong as the will of its wielder.

  Mom... she was stubborn and strong-willed. I should know, she keeps finding the toads and alligators I bring home to the ship, and no amount of whining... argh! God damned Lost Boys! I swear that one day I'll get even with them for this damnable make believe they've put on me. I keep finding myself acting like a teen.

  I smirked and spun through the air as I made my way to where the newcomers were being slaughtered on one side by the horde and held off by an angry fairy trailing fairy dust that was sizzling flesh on the other side.

  I pulled my Glocks and ejected the magazines, slammed them home on my rapid load rig over fresh magazines, and I landed as I started unloading into the oncoming rush of bodies, roaring out a challenge. I was hit a couple of times and hissed as my body rejected the projectiles and they plinked to the ground as the wounds healed up. I returned the favor to the armed creatures. They... didn't heal.

  This gave the new coalition of troops a moment to organize as they formed up on me and my little glowing stepmom. Then they unleashed hell into the dwindling enemy. Flame throwers, automatic weapons fire, and anti-personnel shoulder-fired grenade launchers.

  The world lurched around us and the ground cracked, a fissure spreading swallowing up combatants from both sides as a new shock wave, hundreds of time more powerful than the last, blew us back like straw in a hurricane.

  I took flight and pushed against the energy wave and stabilized myself to see a crater, a quarter-mile in diameter where mom and the Elder had been. Now the Elder staggered to his feet and I panicked a moment before I saw Mom pushing rubble off of herself at the rim of the crater, wiping a little blood from the corner of her mouth as she grinned wickedly.

  The two titans looked exhausted as they flew at each other again. Holy shit.

  I flew higher and looked around the devastation at all the dead strewn about the battlefield that used to be one of the most amazing cities in the world. I saw the Queen's flag fluttering in the distance. The British really were a stubborn lot, weren't they?

  The realization came to me as I looked at the damage not only to the city but the land itself with fissures and chasms heading out from the crater-like a spiderweb of scars in the Earth herself, that we were insignificant to the true struggle. What happened in this lesser conflict between the horde and mortals was just incidental. We were all just pawns being played in the bigger game that was beyond us all. The real fight was being waged by the titans, the gods, the ones with power that could wipe us all out in an instant.

  As if she could read my mind, my beautiful mate flew up to my side and Robyn said, “Mandywolf, we must hold these troops at bay, to let Wendy do what must be done without interference.” Then she added, “She is a wonder to behold.”

  I sighed then nodded and said with all the pride a daughter could have for her mother, “Yes. Yes, she is.” She truly was a badass in every sense of the word.

  Then I looked down and headed down to protect the humans who were regrouping again. I looked to the enemy who were themselves massing for what looked to be a final push, outnumbering the mortals ten to one, then promised as I spoke aloud for those gathered to hear, “Regardless of the outcome this day, those fucking Elders are going to know that they had been in a fight like no other.”

  The roar of cheers that went up told me that mankind was not as broken as the Elders believed. And we charged, clashing with the larger force, so mom could get down to business.

  I picked up a weapon in the severed hand of the first man whom I had disarmed, literally, as I rolled past, and fired it. A pulse of energy burned through two others in front of me. And if it weren't for the bloodlust and song of the hunt singing through my blood, I would have been giddy. Ok, maybe a part of me was. Ray gun! I had a ray gun and Parker was going to be so jealous. I strode forward, firing.

  Errant energy from Hook and Phoebe was tearing rifts in space around them, killing the closest of combatants and tearing the very earth around them asunder. More of the city was being consumed as fissures opened to swallowed entire city blocks. The Thames was actually burning as if the oxygen and hydrog
en molecules inside the water could no longer hold their molecular cohesion and separated and burned.

  I winced as the humans around us fell to the superior numbers of the enemy but that number was quickly dwindling itself until at last, I went to a knee gasping in exhaustion when even my wolf stamina's limit had been reached as the last plantlike animal fell under my cutlass. Robyn landed beside me, panting and sweating herself, and Tink landed on the brim of my hat, wiping beads of sweat that looked to be dew from her forehead.

  I glanced around to see that the field had been won, but at great cost. Besides the two power slinging titans that were tearing up reality, not another living soul except the three of us were left standing.

  We all just stared transfixed at the two beings fighting at such a frighting scale that the very world shook and split apart around them. Did they know the damage they were doing to the very fabric of space as it tore and bled power igniting everything it touched? The early morning twilight was lit up like the face of the sun, or like by the fires of hell herself.

  But even at such an unimaginable scale, their spells and blows were a fraction of what they had been when they first engaged in battle. They were tiring, and making mistakes as both of their reactions slowed as their power ebbed.

  We felt helpless. There was nothing we could do to help Mom. But then I heard the roaring of thunder, realizing it was the sound of cannon-fire as the Sea Devil slid up in the sky above us, belching hellfire and iron as cannonballs backed by the magic of the Lost Boys' imagination whistled through the air and started pummeling Phoebe. He stumbled back under the weight of the barrage as magic exploded in gouts of searing flame that crackled with an unnatural energy.

  Mom took a moment to place her hand and hook on her knees to catch her breath as the unrelenting cannon-fire pushed the exhausted Elder back.

  Phoebe growled out in frustration and slung a ribbon of power through the air which seemed to swallow the world in its path, it collided with the magic protecting the pirate ship and it heaved and shuddered, some of the rigging snapping and fell to the deck, but it weathered the strike. It couldn't take many of those, as the magic protecting her was almost used up in the battle as it had taken so many strikes from various types of weapons from the horde. Mom would have to use her hook to recharge the mystic protections.

  The smile that appeared on Phoebe's face told me he had sussed it out too as he looked between Wendy and the Sea Devil, and he prepared to lash out at the ship again. Mom saw this and she dove and took a hit from one of those dark ribbons of reality swallowing magic and gasped.

  She went to a knee as her hook sung out a sour note, not able to fully attenuate the strike. “Mom!” I stepped forward but was restrained by Robyn on my right and Tinkerbell who had bigged on my left.

  A red gash was apparent on Wendy's face as she looked back at us, restrained pain in her face as she said hoarsely, “I'm going to summon the Nothing.”

  We all froze... if she brought the Nothing, it would swallow whatever it touched and we wouldn't even remember whatever it was to mourn it. She'd cut the mortal realm off from all the other realms forever, with only the Sea Devil able to travel through it and still exist. That told us she was at the end of her wits and wasn't sure she could prevail.

  I opened my mouth to tell her not to do it, that we could regroup with the others when a shadow passed over us all. We looked up to see a huge plane with Russian markings on it passing over the area, in front of the rising sun. And something dropped from it.

  We watched the single item fall toward us, what good would one... and my eyes widened, they wouldn't would they? We were down here too, and the Queen! The others realized what I had too as Mom screamed out to us, “Get to the ship! Now!” Her eyes wide and manic and I was being dragged bodily by both Robyn and Tinkerbell up to the Sea Devil.

  I watched as the nuke hit, realizing we weren't going to make it in time. But the girls slung me backward and as the blinding flash of the nuclear blast reached me, I had just passed through the protective barrier.

  My eyes wide in terror as I realized Tink and Robyn hadn't made it as the world was consumed in nuclear flame, the roar was deafening as the Sea Devil shook and bucked and spun and tumbled through the air, A horrendous crack was heard above it all as the ship heaved and her back broke as masts cracked and fell.

  But all of that barely registered to me. As the heat that was making it through the magic set the sails and the deck aflame, my stunned mind couldn't comprehend that Robyn, Tink, and Mom... were...

  I blinked as my eyes that had been literally blinded by the blast, and my eardrums that had shattered, healed themselves, the lupus curse doing what it did. And I looked out over the desolation, and destruction that had at one time been the city of London under the giant mushroom cloud. The sheer amount of destruction unimaginable. The Russians had to have dropped the most powerful nuclear device ever devised.

  How could they have?

  I looked down at the new crater that had joined the earlier, smaller one, and gasped. Mom was there, on one knee, head bent, her hook glowing white-hot as it sang out in a weak tone, as a bubble fell from around her.

  The Elder was burned and bloodied as it took on a different form, limping backward away from Mom, looking around almost frantically then appeared to make up its mind and started to gather energy as it glared at Wendy.

  I dove through the flames and smoke of the crippled Sea Devil to fly down toward the woman I felt in my heart was my mother, the rest of my heart torn asunder when I didn't see Robyn or Tinkerbell. Had the Russians really killed them, the people I loved, my family?

  Mom tried to raise her hook, but she was past her limit. I was about to scream out in denial as the Elder looked ready to strike her down when it staggered back as if it had been hit. It swayed and I saw in its eyes something I didn't understand, a mirror of my fathomless, aching loss of the women I couldn't bring myself to acknowledge were gone, no matter how impossible it seemed to me. Then it turned and ran, tearing a shaky hole through the veil between realms, sealing it behind.

  Phoebe... was gone.

  I saw the tears in mother's eyes as she shook her head at me, a small voice asking, “Tink?” I shook my head and then fell into her arms and we collapsed to our knees, sobbing as the reality of it finally struck me and my legs gave out. My mate, my love, the other half of my soul... was gone, and she had saved my life. It should have been me.

  When Wendy stilled and looked up, rage in her eyes, she whispered in a tone that could have carried for miles, chilling the burnt and scorched earth around us, “They are going to pay...” She wrapped an arm around my waist and leapt into the air, dragging me with her.

  I just stared at the Sea Devil, broken and listing as the crew and the Lost Boys worked on putting the fires out and cutting away the sails that were tattered and smoking, but she still floated. The moment our boots hit the deck, a gust of wind rushed through the ship, extinguishing the last of the flames and blowing away the smoke.

  As mother strode to the ship's wheel, all eyes were on her as the Sea Devil cracked and moaned in protest as her back slowly straightened. The remaining sails on the two remaining masts billowed and snapped tight in the magical wind emanating from her Captain.

  And then Hook called out, garnering no dissent, “Cut loose the anchors. We sail to Seattle, we sail for Tink and Robyn and all those we have lost!”

  I joined in the violent cheers that arose as the Sea Devil slowly righted herself and limped through the veil between worlds. She was right, the Elders were going to pay for what they took from me... from us.

  Chapter 13 – Know My Wrath, Know My Pain

  Gretel looked at me, her eyes haunted, like half her soul had been torn from her, and she pleaded with me to tell her she was dreaming with just a look as she whispered, “Eve... it killed Kat and Belle...”

  Then she snarled as I felt dark magics bubbling just below her surface as she turned to w
atch Illya's demon form and a hissing Rose running at the enemy as they poured out of a fissure in reality around a large almost formless being who solidified into a huge humanoid form, possibly twenty or thirty feet tall.

  The rest of us exchanged looks then turned as one to charge toward the oncoming enemy. My attention was on the Elder. I could feel its overwhelming magics from here, the same magics that had killed my friends and the soldiers sent with them, as well as the people of one of the most populous cities in the world.

  Tangentially, as I was trying to get over the shock of losing two women I saw as sisters, I was impressed that Nicole, in her shining silver armor, was keeping up with me as I moved at wolf speed to catch up with Rose and Illya.

  Both women were death incarnate, being manifestations of two of the most deadly Demon curses ever cast. Rose was even known as Death's Lady. And Illya... her demon form, that was grafted upon her innocence when she was sacrificed against her will to create the lycan contagion itself, could bring true death to a demon. Normally only a demon's own blood or magic could bring about its true death.

  I pondered that as we charged, was that why Masika had implied without saying that the Elders feared the demons?

  A demon's manifested form is simply a construct of the sick and corrupted magics of the creature itself. When it is dispatched, it simply returns to the demon realm and waits for another chance to break through the veil to run free in another realm. The Elders must not have figured out how to give demons a true death. It's why they punish other realms by opening a portal to the demon realm.

  Rose was screaming as she flung her arms wide, those blackened vines tore out of her chest in an unending tide, the thorny brambles and vines that dripped with the most potent, curse magic infused neurotoxin poisons.