Worm

by wildbow

  “If it’s a trick—”

  With a little anger in her voice, a hard tone, she spoke, “Either we set down or I drop you. I can’t hold on much longer.”

  “Right.”

  She carried me two blocks away from the crater. The ground was wet, but no longer submerged, the road was torn up, shattered, covered with debris.

  Laserdream checked her armband, “It’s one of the shelters. They sprung a leak, need help evacuating. I’m going.”

  Dad. It could be my dad.

  “Bring me,” I said.

  She frowned.

  “I know your arms are tired. Mine is too, and I was just hanging there. I can’t tell you how thankful I am that you’ve done this much to help me, but we have to stick together, and you can fly low enough to the ground that you can drop me if you have to.”

  “Fine, but we’re leaving the doll kid here.”

  She laid Parian down in a recessed doorway, then pressed the ‘ping’ button on the girl’s armband.

  I held the halberd out while Laserdream walked around behind me. She wrapped her arms around my chest and lifted us off. Uncomfortable, and she was jarring my broken arm, which hurt like a motherfucker, but I couldn’t complain after just having asked to come.

  Myrddin down, BX-9.

  Laserdream carried us around the edge of the ‘lake’ that was still growing, if not quite so fast as it had been. I saw others gathered at the edge of the water, forming battle lines where Leviathan might have a clear path to make a run for it. If he wanted to make a run for it. As it stood, he was entirely in his environment, in the heart of the city, where he could continue to work whatever mojo he needed to bring more tidal waves down on our heads. To my bug senses, Leviathan was deep beneath the waves, moving rapidly, acting like he was engaged in a fight. Against Eidolon? I couldn’t tell. Every darting, hyperfast movement dislodged a few bugs, made him harder to detect.

  The shelter was set beneath a smallish library. A concrete stairwell beside the building led belowground to the twenty-foot wide vault door. Fragments of the building and the ledge overhanging the stairwell had fallen, blocked the door from opening fully. Making matters worse, the door was stuck in a partially ajar position, and the stairwell was flooded with water, which ran steadily into the shelter. Two capes were already present, shoulder deep in the water, ducking below to grab stones and rising again to heave them out.

  “What’s the plan?” I asked, as Laserdream set us down, I immediatelly sent out a call to summon bugs to my location, just to be safe. “Do we want to shut the door or open it?”

  “Open it,” one of the capes in the water said. He ducked down, grabbed a rock, hauled it out with a grunt. “We don’t know what condition they’re in, inside.”

  Laserdream stepped forward and began blasting with her laser, penetrating the water and breaking up the larger rocks at the base of the door.

  I was very nearly useless here. With one hand, I couldn’t clear the rubble, and my power wasn’t any use. There weren’t even many crabs or other crustaceans I could employ in the water around us, and the ones that did exist were small.

  Then I remembered the halberd.

  “Hey,” I stopped one of the capes that was heaving rocks out of the stairwell, “Use this.”

  “As a shovel?” he looked skeptical.

  “Just try it, only… don’t touch the blade.”

  He nodded, took the halberd, and ducked beneath the water. Ten seconds later, he raised his head, “Holy shit. This works.”

  “Use it on the door?” I suggested. He gave me a curt nod.

  Enemy location unknown, I could hear the cape’s armband announce. Defensive perimeter, report.

  There was a pause.

  No reports. Location unknown. Exert caution.

  “I’m going to try cutting the door off,” the cape spoke. He descended beneath the water. I could barely make out his silhouette. Laserdream ceased firing as he made his way to where the heavy metal door was, stepped around and set to burning long channels in the side of the stairwell. I realized it was intended to give the water in the stairwell somewhere to flow that wasn’t towards the people inside.

  The door tipped into the stairwell and came to rest against the opposite wall, resting at a forty-five degree angle, sloping up toward the railing. The water in the stairwell flowed inside, an unfortunate consequence. The cape with the halberd set to using the blur of the halberd to to cut lines into the back of the door and to remove the railing, so there was sufficient traction for people walking up and out of the door.

  I stepped down to investigate, sent a few bugs in to get the lay of the land. The interior of the shelter was surprisingly like what Coil’s headquarters had been like, concrete walls with metal walkways and multiple levels. There were water coolers and a set of freezers, bathrooms and a sectioned off first aid area.

  It was clear that one of the waves or Leviathan’s creation of that massive sinkhole in downtown had done some damage to the shelter. Water was pouring in from a far wall and from the front door, and twenty or so people were in the first aid bay on cots, injured and bloody. A team of about fifty or sixty people were moving sandbags to reduce the flow of water into the chamber from the cracked back wall. A second, smaller team was blocking off the room with the cots, piling sandbags in the doorway. In the main area, people stood nearly waist deep in water.

  “Everyone out!” Laserdream called out.

  Relief was clear on people’s faces as they began wading en masse toward the front doors.

  My dad was taller than average, and I hoped to be able to make him out, see if he was in the crowd. As the group gravitated toward the doorway, however, I lost the ability to peer over the mass of people. I didn’t see him.

  I hung back as people filed out in twos and threes. Mothers and fathers holding their kids, who otherwise wouldn’t be tall enough to stay above water, people still in pajamas or bathrobes, people holding their dogs above water or with cats on their shoulders. They marched against the flow of water from the stairwell, up the back of the vault door and onto the street.

  Mr. Gladly was near the back of the crowd, with a blond woman that was taller than him, holding his hand. It bugged me, in a way I couldn’t explain. It was like I felt he didn’t deserve a girlfriend or wife. But that wasn’t exactly it. It was like this woman was somone who maybe liked him, heard his side of things, validated his self-perception of being this excellent, ‘cool’ teacher. A part of me wanted to explain to that woman that he wasn’t, that he was the worst sort of teacher, who helped the kids who already had it easy, and dropped the fucking ball when it came to those of us who needed it.

  It was surprising how much that chance meeting bugged me.

  A shriek startled me out of my contemplations. It was quickly followed by a dozen other screams of mortal terror.

  Impel deceased, CB-10. Apotheosis deceased, CB-10.

  I felt him arrive, a small few bugs still inside him, though most of the rest had been washed away in his swim. There were so few I’d missed his approach.

  Leviathan.

  People ran back inside the shelter, screamed and pushed, trampled one another. I was forced into the corner by the door as they ran into the shelter, tried to make some distance between themselves and the Endbringer.

  Laserdream down, CB-10.

  And he was there, climbing through the vaultlike door, so large he barely fit. One claw on either side, he pushed his way through. Stood as tall as he could inside the front door, looking over the crowd. Hundreds of people were within, captive, helpless.

  A lash of his tail struck down a dozen people in front of him. The afterimage struck down a dozen more.

  No death notice from the armband for civilians.

  Leviathan took a step forward, putting me behind him and just to his right. He lashed his tail again. Another dozen or two dozen civilians slain.

  Mr. Gladly’s girlfriend was screaming, burying her face in his shoulder. Mr. Gla
dly stared up at Leviathan, wide eyed, his lips pressed together in a line, oddly red faced.

  I didn’t care. I should feel bad my teacher was about to die, but all I could think about was how he’d ignored me when Emma and the others had had me cornered.

  One hand on my shoulder to steady my throbbing broken arm, I slipped behind Leviathan, hugging the wall, slipping around the corner and moving up the vault door with padded feet.

  It was a dark mirror to what Mr. Gladly had done to me. What Emma and her friends had done, I couldn’t say for sure that I would have had the mental fortitude to put up with it if I hadn’t gotten my powers—and for all he knew, I hadn’t. I couldn’t know whether I could have dealt with everything that had followed the incident in January, if I could have made it this far if I hadn’t had my powers, these distractions. In every way that mattered, Mr. Gladly turning his back on me, back there in the school hallway, a time that felt so long ago, could have killed me.

  A fitting justice, maybe, leaving him in that shelter with Leviathan.

  I saw Laserdream lying face down in the water, bent down and turned her over with my good hand and one foot, checked she was breathing.

  The two capes, who I took to be Impel and Apotheosis, were torn into pieces. I ran past them. Ran past the civilians who Leviathan had struck down, ripped apart.

  I stopped, when I found the halberd, picked it up. Found Impel’s armband, bent down and pressed the buttons to open communications, “Leviathan’s at the shelter in CB-10. Need reinforcements fast.”

  Chevalier replied, “Shit. He must have gone through some storm drain or sewer. Our best teleporter’s dead, but we’ll do what we can.”

  Which left me only one thing to do. I had to be better than Mr. Gladly.

  I ran past Impel and Apotheosis, passed Laserdream, and reached the shelter’s entrance once more.

  Leviathan was further inside, crouched, his back to me. His tail lashed in front of him. Terrified screams echoed from within.

  It was agonizing to do it, but I moved slowly, to minimize the noise I made, even as every second allowed Leviathan more time to tear into the crowd. To move too fast would alert him, waste any opportunity I had here. A backwards movement of Leviathan’s tail arced through the air, fell atop me, forcing me down into the water. Gallons of cold water dropping down from ten feet above me.

  I swallowed the scream, the grunting of pain that threatened to escape my throat, stood again, slowly.

  With only one hand, I didn’t have the leverage to really swing the halberd. I had to hold it towards the top, near the blade, which meant having less reach, having to get closer.

  When I was close enough, I drew the blade back and raked it just below the base of his tail. Where his asshole would be if he had human anatomy. Easiest place for me to reach, with him crouched down like he was.

  Dust billowed and Leviathan reacted instantly, swiped with one claw, fell onto his side when the damage to his buttocks and the hampered mobility of his tail screwed with his ability to control the movement of his lower body. His claw swipe went high. His afterimage was broken up by the the wall above the door, but enough crashed down in front of and on top of me to throw me back out of the shelter, into the toppled shelter door. I was pushed under the water, the halberd slipping from my grip.

  I climbed to my feet at the same time he did, but I had a clear route up the back of the shelter door while he had to squeeze through the opening. I was on the street and running well before he was up out of the stairwell.

  I gathered my bugs to me, sent some to him, to better track his movements. As he climbed up, I gathered the swarms into decoys that looked human-ish, sent them all moving in different directions, gathered more around myself to match them in appearance.

  With the effects of my slash of the halberd combined with the damage Armsmaster had already done, Leviathan didn’t have the mobility with his tail he otherwise would. When he attacked my decoys, he did it with slashes of his claw and pouncing leaps that sent out afterimages to crash into them. A swipe of the claw’s echo to disperse one swarm to his left, a lunge to destroy one in front of him. Another afterimage of a claw swipe sent out to strike at me.

  Water crashed into me, hard as concrete, fast as a speeding car. I felt more pain than I’d ever experienced, more than when Bakuda had used that grenade on me, the one that set my nerve endings on fire with raw pain. It was brief, somehow more real than what Bakuda had inflicted on me. Struck me like a lightning flash.

  I plunged face first into the water. My good arm on its own wasn’t enough to turn me over—the road just a little too far below me. I tried to use my legs to help turn myself over. Zero response.

  I’d either been torn in two and couldn’t feel the pain yet or, more likely, I’d been paralyzed from the waist down.

  Oh.

  Not like I really should’ve expected any different. Neither case was much better than the other, as far as I was concerned.

  My breath had been knocked out of me at the impact, but some primal, instinctual part of me had let me hold my breath. I lay there, face down in two or three feet of water, counting the seconds until I couldn’t hold my breath any more, until my body opened my mouth and I heaved in a breath with that same instinctual need for preservation, filled my lungs with water instead.

  The lenses of my mask were actually swim goggles. It was a strange recollection to cross my mind. I’d bought them from a sports supply store, buying the useless chalk dust at the same time. Durable, high end, meant for underwater cave spelunkers, if I remembered the picture on the packaging right. Tinted to help filter out bright lights, to avoid being blinded by any fellow swimmer’s headlamps. I’d fitted the lenses from an old pair of glasses inside, sealed them in place with silicon at the edges, so I had 20/20 vision while I had my mask on without having to wear glasses beneath or over it, or contact lenses, which irritated my eyes. I’d built the armor of my mask around the edges of the goggles so the actual nature of the lenses wasn’t immediately apparent, and to hold them firmly in place.

  Even so, when I opened my eyes, looked through those lenses for their original purpose, all I could see was mud, grit, silt. Black and dark brown, with only the faintest traces of light. It disappointed me on a profound level, knowing that this might be the last thing I ever saw. Disappointed me more than the idea of dying here, odd as that was.

  Through my power, I sensed Leviathan turn, take a step back toward the shelter, stop. His entire upper body turned so he could peer to his left with his head, turned the opposite way to peer right. Like a dog sniffing.

  He dropped to all fours, ran away, a loping gait, not the lightning fast movement he’d sported when he first attacked. Still fast enough.

  My chest lurched in a sob for air, like a dry heave. I managed to keep from opening my mouth but the action, the clenching of every muscle above my shoulders, left my throat aching.

  Two seconds later, it hit me again harder.

  Two blocks away, Leviathan crashed down into the water.

  Another lurch of my throat and chest, painful. My mouth opened, water filled my mouth, and my throat locked up to prevent the inhalation of water. I spat the water out, forced it out of my mouth, for all the good it would do.

  I’d left the fat cape to die like this when the wave was coming. Was this karma?

  Something splashed near me. A footstep.

  I was hauled out of the water. I felt a lancing pain through my midsection, like a hot iron, gasped, sputtered. Through the beads of water on my lenses, I couldn’t make out much.

  Bitch, I realized. She wasn’t looking at me. Her face was etched deep with pain, fury, fear, sheer viciousness, or some combination of the four.

  I followed her gaze, blinked twice.

  Her dogs were attacking Leviathan, and Leviathan was attacking back. He hurled two away, three more leapt in.

  How many dogs?

  Leviathan pulled away, only for a dog to snag his arm, drag him off balanc
e. Another latched on to his elbow, while a third and fourth pounced onto his back, tearing into his spine. More crouched and circled around him, looking for opportunities and places to bite.

  He clubbed one away with a crude movement of his tail, used his free claw to grab it by the throat, tear a chunk of flesh away. The dog perished in a matter of seconds.

  Bitch howled, a primal, raw sound that must have hurt her throat as much as it hurt to listen to. She moved forward, pulling me with her, lifting me up. When I sagged, she gave me a startled look.

  I looked down. My legs were there, but there was no sensation. Numb wasn’t a complete enough term to explain it.

  “Back’s broken, I think,” the words were weak. The calm tone of the words was eerie, even coming from my own mouth to my own ears. Disconcertingly out of place with the frenzied, savage tableau.

  Leviathan wheeled around, grabbed another dog by one shoulder, dug a claw into the dog’s ribcage and cracked it open, the ribs splaying apart like the wings of some macabre bird, heart and lungs exposed. The animal dropped dead to the water’s surface at Leviathan’s feet.

  Bitch looked from me to the dog, as if momentarily lost. In an instant, that look disappeared, replaced by that etching of rage and fury. She screeched the words, “Kill him! Kill!”

  It wasn’t enough. The dogs were strong, there were six of them left, even, but Leviathan was more of a monster than all of them put together.

  He heaved one dog off the ground, slammed it into another like a club, then hurled it against a wall, where it dropped, limp and broken.

  With that same claw, he slashed, tore the upper half of a dog’s head off.

  “Kill!” Bitch shrieked.

  No use. One by one, the dogs fell. Four left, then three. Two dogs left. They backed away, wary, each in a different direction.

  Bitch clutched me, her arms so tight around my shoulders it hurt. When I looked up at her, I saw tears in the corners of her eyes as she stared unblinking at the scene.

  Scion dropped from the sky. Golden skinned, golden beard trimmed close, or perhaps it never grew beyond that length. His hair was longer than mine. His bodysuit and cape were a plain white, stained with faded marks of old dir and blood, a strange juxtaposition to how perfect and unblemished he looked, otherwise. There was no impact as he landed, no great splash or rumble of the earth. Leviathan didn’t even seem to notice the hero’s arrival.