World Wonders

by James Perrone

  Larsson appeared next to me, “Well, we still need to kill him permanently. His death is the only way I can solidify my power base and displace Ipsen.”

  My brain kicked on something, and I could feel the engine that would ignite a light bulb starting up. “Power.” I murmured.

  McCoy caught the spark too, “What did Crow Killer Joe say about the heart?”

  I nodded fervently, “That the heart is the source of all power.”

  “And vitality” we said in unison.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw panic replace the pain and anger in Voigt’s eyes. Jackpot. Without turning, I proclaimed to Larsson, “Destroy the heart.”

  Her lupine features curled into a cruel grin, “With pleasure,” she purred.[132]

  She slowly stalked forward, obviously relishing the torment stretched across her kinkiller’s face. As foolish as it felt to take any time here, seeing the panic plain on his face was wonderfully cathartic. His flailing arms reaching forward, seemingly clawing for purchase on the dirt ground. Larsson stepped over the flailing arms and straddled his back, sinking her claws deep into his body, digging for his heart. Blood welled up and oozed out of Voigt’s back as tears of pain streamed down his face. Frantically, his right arm flailed to what seemed to be an effort to hide his tears and shame. The entire thing was a horrifying distortion of the human body, but I couldn’t help but watch in morbid fascination.[133]

  A large chunk of flesh went flying and I saw Larsson reach for something, presumably the heart. Her grin widened into a full-blown slasher smile.

  But then, the arm covering Voigt’s face twitched, pulling his head sideways with it. A sickening crack rang out, his head lolling for but a moment before snapping into a natural position and then Voigt’s other arm, fully healed, lashed out and grabbed Larsson’s leg. The color drained from my face and my bladder nearly emptied.

  “Oh fuck,” I managed, too shocked by the not quite suicide to do much else.

  “Oh, yes,” responded Voigt.

  Chapter 23

  How to Kill an Immortal

  Larsson’s leg crumpled and cracked under Voigt’s pulverizing grasp, the armor like fur unable to deflect the raw crushing strength. McCoy snapped her shotgun back up, but Voigt tugged, causing Larsson to fall and provide him with cover. Unable to get a shot, McCoy pivoted and maneuvered looking for a clear shot. Meanwhile, Carlson ran in, looking to pin Voigt again. He got as far as grabbing the harpoon before Voigt grabbed Larsson like a club, rolled, snapping the harpoon haft in half, and clobbered Carlson with 500 pounds of fur. Carlson flew like a line drive, plowed off his feet and into a tent which promptly collapsed atop him, tangling him inside. McCoy took the clearing to put a slug through Voigt’s leg, before Voigt pivoted and put Larsson back as a shield between us.

  “Where the fuck did all this come from?” McCoy yelled out, strafing left to get a clear shot.

  “Maybe he’s desperate or he was trying to lull us into a false sense of security?” I responded, strafing to the right.

  McCoy found another angle then and opened up, ending our banter. Her first shot tore into his upper leg and the second found an errant foot. However, by the time the third shot was in the air, Voigt had grabbed Larsson’s arm, crushing it as he pulled her overhead like a riot shield. Her armor fur did its thing, but there was still a notable chunk of arm blown away by the slug. Thankfully, McCoy wasn’t using silver rounds, probably due to running out, so the wound started stitching itself together and I didn’t feel too bad about the unfriendly fire.[134]

  There was another sickening crunch as Larsson’s arm crumpled and she howled in pain again. Desperate to stop the damage on her, I dropped to the ground and emptied my entire magazine into his right arm. A few stray rounds deflected off Larsson, but apparently it was worth it as the grip loosened and Larsson was able to pull the pulp that was formerly her leg out from his grip. She pivoted and slashed her free hand across the wrist pinning her down. The claws went clean through, splitting flesh, arteries, and tendons as she went. Without grip strength, Voigt couldn’t stop her from squirming free. I whooped in triumph when all of a sudden there was another snapping sound as Voigt put his hand to jaw again, resetting himself once more. Whole once more, he reached out towards Larsson. She moved to leap away, but was slowed due to having only one foot, Voigt still clipped her, which caused her planned leap to turn into a disoriented tumble. That tumble, naturally, sent her directly towards me, knocking us both to the ground.

  “Ooof,” I said as the air was driven out of my lungs.

  “Oh, shut up,” Larsson responded, starting to stand up, “I’m not that heavy.” McCoy, meanwhile, opened up, trying to maim Voigt enough that we could reach his heart, but being hampered by Voigt’s neck snapping solution to that problem. I remembered an odd trivia factoid from a bad romance movie that stated that a sane human couldn’t bite through their own skin. I wondered how many more steps into insanity you had to be where snapping your own neck was okay. Larsson repositioned above me, which put most of her weight on my leg and dragged me back to the present.

  “You aren’t exactly light either,” I said as I managed to help her up. I hazarded a glance at my gun and saw it bent like a boomerang. Slate wasn’t going to be happy about replacing it.

  She stood, clearly favoring her uncrushed left leg, but starting to put small amounts of weight on the rapidly healing right leg. Even with a good night’s rest, I wouldn’t consider walking on a crushed ankle. “Damn,” I thought, “She really is built to survive.” Annoyed, I motioned to Storm Before the Calm and Perilous Truth Seeker, still standing at the edges of the arena. “When are your boys going to tag in for you?”

  She growled, flexing her crushed hand’s claws experimentally, “They can’t, or the kill can’t be claimed by me alone, which will weaken my claim as Alpha. The hope is that if I die, they can finish him and attempt a contestation by deed.”

  I hazarded a glance at McCoy, who was darting around keeping Voigt distracted, using his unnatural slowness to her advantage. She wasn’t doing much damage anymore, but she was certainly buying time for Larsson to heal. I made a mental note to buy her something nice when this was over.

  “And what about us?”

  Larsson shrugged, as if the response was obvious, “You’re not pack. You don’t count.”

  Ignoring the implicit condescension, wheels started turning in my brain again as a new plan started to form. Walking towards the dropped harpoon gun, I asked her curiously, “Does getting Carlson untangled count as helping?”

  She paused her self-diagnostic and looked at me curiously, “It could be argued that it doesn’t. Do you have a plan?”

  I stooped to heft the massive thing, but nearly threw out my back, “A stupid one, but if you can distract Voigt long enough, I might be able to end this in one shot.”

  She eyed me critically, and I sheepishly shrugged before pointing my head at the frantically dodging and weaving McCoy, “She could do with some help.” Larsson nodded and then whistled at SBtC, who lopped off towards the crumpled tent. With a delicate step, she sprinted off towards Voigt, still not quite at full speed, but getting closer by the second.

  Meanwhile, I looked at the massive harpoon gun. My predictions about being unable to heft it proved correct. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw blood splay artfully as Larsson knicked Voigt and pulled his attention on to her. McCoy took the distraction to move over towards me, casting a curious eye at the harpoon gun.

  “You out of ammo too?” she asked. Voigt was trying to grab Larsson again, but to no avail.

  I shook my head, “Larsson bent my gun when she landed on me.”

  McCoy blew out a deep sigh, “That’s rough. So, what’s the plan?”

  I tapped the cannon with my foot, “We’ve already established that this can go through his body. Spear the heart out.”

  She gave the harpoon gun another look, sizing it up. “Ballsy,” she declared, “As plans go it’s kinda stupid.�
�

  I nodded, “Well, it’s this or running away and giving him time to rebuild and leaving Larsson out in the wind. Besides, the military is fond of saying. ‘If it’s stupid and it works, then it isn’t stupid.’”

  “Fair enough. Though, I don’t think we can heft that thing.”

  Carlson rumbled behind us, “I can though.”

  I turned[135] to see more of SBtC than I had ever wanted to see. He had returned with Carlson and looked very pleased with himself. Pride in his voice as he declared, “I fetched your errant packmate and got him here without interrupting the Alpha’s fight.”

  McCoy cut in, clearly tired and frustrated, “Good boy, do you want a treat?”

  The mirth died and turned to righteous rage. Through bared fangs, he hissed, “I. am. NOT. a. pet.”

  Carlson stepped in before I could, arms out wide and holding the two of them at arm’s length, “We can handle this later, right now we have a Wendigo to harpoon.”

  SBtC bristled, and then leapt away, leaving us to wrangle the harpoon gun.

  “Can you not piss off the 400-pound killing machine?” I hissed at McCoy. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Larsson duck in long enough to score some bleeding wounds before bouncing out of the retaliatory range of Voigt’s grasp.

  “Oh, shut up,” She retorted.

  Carlson hefted the harpoon gun with ease, taking a wide stance “Both of you shut up and help me aim this thing. It’s got a kick and I’ve never been the best shot.”

  “You hit him earlier though,” I commented.

  Carlson snorted, “I was aiming for between the shoulder blades.”

  Ah. That was not the kind of error that would be acceptable here. If Voigt caught on to us being clever, there was nothing stopping him from just leaving the next time he pried the harpoon free besides hubris and hunger. We both turned to McCoy who was already sighting Voigt in, “If you can hold it, I can aim it.” She peeked up from the sights, “Tennant, can you help guide the harpoon in? Not sure what the ballistic path on a harpoon is like and I’d rather hope for a second chance.”

  I dug for my telekinesis, “On it.”

  I slowly visualized a corridor directly between the harpoon gun and Voigt’s back, creating an idealized flight path for the harpoon to travel. Distantly, I was aware of Larsson baiting Voigt into walking a straight line away from us. I pushed that from my mind to concentrate on the telekinetic corridor, blocking all else from my mind. I breathed rhythmically and deeply, letting it reinforce my corridor turning a gentle thought into solid will. I had never done this before, but it was a far cry easier than lifting myself had been.

  “Ready” I breathed out.

  I think Carlson and McCoy said other things, but I was off in my own world of concentration. Faintly, I was aware of another whump, but that was also pushed from my mind as the harpoon entered my telekinetic corridor.

  I had been bull riding once. Not the real thing, one of those mechanical numbers at some country bar in Keane County. McCoy had bet me twenty bucks that I couldn’t stay on for five minutes. I had won by cheating and using my telekinesis to keep me leveraged on and to mitigate sudden force changes that would throw me off balance. Never hard pushes, which is where most people go wrong, just little adjustments that added up.[136]

  This wasn’t too different. The harpoon wanted to buck and heave out of the corridor, and I corrected by nudging it, not shoving it back onto course, with a delicate hand. Idly, I was aware of McCoy and Carlson seemingly panicking, but I just kept myself in the zone, free of errant thoughts and giving delicate pushes.[137]

  It wasn’t until the splatter of blood hit telekinetic barriers that I let the corridor collapse and the breath I had been holding out. The force of the harpoon combined with the sudden loss of his heart had driven him to his hands and knees, harpoon point barely though his body. Skewered in a raged and oozing mess, his heart convulsed but didn’t beat. We all breathed a sigh of relief. It was over. We had won.

  And then his hands twitched and reached forward towards the skewered heart.

  “Are you fucking shitting me? How can he live without his heart?” Carlson bewilderedly asked. My brain was trying to make the connection, but for now my jaw was just flapping in the wind.

  Meanwhile, Voigt tucked his leg up and planted a foot, leveling the harpoon. Larsson, started slashing at him, trying to slow him down, but it seemed to have no effect. His hands grabbed the harpoon and began to push it backwards.

  “Hotchkiss,” I cursed.

  McCoy glared at me, “What?”

  “Hotchkiss could live without his heart. That’s why the harpoon didn’t kill him.”

  Voigt lashed out with an arm, stopping his motion but forcing Larsson to slide backward so she didn’t get caught again.

  “Well fuck me sideways. Now what?” McCoy asked incredulously.

  I started talking, panic seeping in the form of an increasingly frantic pater. “That should’ve worked. We’ve destroyed the heart. There’s no seat of vitality left. There’s no power. That’s why Voigt was eati……”

  The logic slammed into me. I yelled at Larsson, “THE HEART! EAT IT! EAT THE HEART!”

  I felt the air grow still around me as we all held our breath, waiting for Larsson to move. She stood still for but an instant and then in a blur of movement, she was on Voigt, right arm extended. Her claws clipped his heart before Voigt’s right hand crossed and grabbed her wrist, crushing her wrist so thoroughly that her entire hand fell limp and drove her to the ground.

  That, however, was just a sacrifice play. Larsson’s left hand snaked under his crossed arm and plucked the pulp that was once his heart off. With a quick pounce, she planted her feet on Voigt’s chest and pushed, launching herself away. Voigt’s grasp didn’t let up, which meant that as she flew backward, her entire right hand was left behind, ripping from her body in a sickening tear, blood spraying as she flew.

  Still, she was fiercely triumphant as she stood up, battered and punctured heart in hand. Panic and then, for the first time, dread crossed Voigt’s eyes as she raised the bits to her mouth. Helplessly, he reached for her, arms striving for something just out of his reach.

  “No,” was all Voigt managed in a voice that only came across as frightened instead of the sickenly honeyed tones it previously had. He continued as Larsson placed the entire heart in her mouth and started to chew, “I’m supposed to be immortal. I’m supposed to be better than you. This isn’t how this is supposed to go.”

  Larsson just smiled and swallowed.

  A shockwave radiated outward, knocking everyone but Voigt from their feet. As I managed to sit up, his frantic pleas turned into wordless screams as seemingly endless chunks of flesh and muscle peeled from his body, piling around him. They oozed ichor outwards, creating a veritable pond of blood. As the process went on, the pattern became apparent as the shedded flesh started to take forms. Numerous hearts, piled around him, coupled with arms, legs, hands, and no small amount of faces.

  Disturbingly, some of the parts were too small to be adults.

  I wanted to hurl. Carlson did.

  And still the process went on. The body parts started to pile up, building underneath Voigt. The blood and bits blurred together, but I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the bodily horror that I was certain would plague my nightmares for years to come.

  The cascade lasted for several minutes, lifting an increasingly emaciated Voigt, still harpooned higher. Three, five, ten feet off the ground. At the peak, his once proudly tall frame was crumpled and curled, looking more like the cancer patient he had once been. The withered frame slumped, and with that final humiliation a death rattle crept forth. With it, his flesh fell away, revealing a macabre skeleton that the harpoon promptly crushed to dust. Only then I was able to look away.

  Chapter 24

  Debts Repaid

  I closed my eyes and tried really hard not to listen to Carlson’s second round of vomit, worried that it would cause me to vomit too. Stup
id sympathetic responses. Still, it was filling my ears and flooding my brain and my stomach was lurching, when all sound flooded out by a cacophony of wings.

  “Oh, fuck me sideways,” McCoy said next to me, looking upwards and seemingly unphased by the entire contents of Carlson’s stomach.

  I pulled my brain out of the blood pools and saw the horde of crows perched on every available perch as far as the eye could see. Tents, trailers, and cages. All packed with black birds. I didn’t trust myself to speak, but I certainly agreed with McCoy. A sweet honey voice spoke from our right, “I do hope we don’t need to go through the entire gunpoint mess again.”

  Crow Killer Joe strode into the clearing, uncaring about the lake of ichor pooled around his bare feet.

  I swallowed and moved forward before McCoy’s trigger finger got the best of her[138], “Depends on why you’re here Joe.”

  He smiled wide and motioned to the carnage he stood in as if it were simply a puddle, “Oh, I’m just here to thank some people for their help and settle up some debts.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yep,” he said, clearly not wanting to elaborate. “Am I free to go about my business?”

  “Don’t think I can stop you,” I confessed.

  “Smart boy,” he said with a chuckle and smile before walking over to Larsson.

  Now that I had a chance to look, Larsson was not looking so hot. Her body was twitching and shaking and there were small puddles of bile around her. Her arms were shaking as a new hand grew in spurts out of her right elbow. It was currently the size of a child’s wrist with a baby’s hand on the end. Joe tutted, “Oh, you did a good thing here. Stupid, but good. The Wendigo spirit is fighting with yours trying to take over. Take it you don’t want that, do you?”

  Defiance crossed her face, but vomit came out of her mouth.

  “Figured as much,” Joe continued, his tone paternal. “I would like to pay my debt to you, incurred from your assistance in killing a Craven One, by stopping you from becoming a Wendigo. Do you accept?” Between the spasms, Larsson weakly nodded.