Protruding from the darkness into the beam of light came the silhouette of a massive head, clearly ducking under the remains of the doorframe. As I struggled to rationalize what I was seeing, the head was followed by the colossal muscle-laden body attached to it. As the mind shattering figure cleared the threshold and stood upright, it was just barely contained within the limits of the vestibule cathedral ceiling that was easily fifteen feet in height.
It was a man. A fucking giant man. And in a bizarre fashion, it was also familiar to me.
Like a dreadful case of déjà vu, my mind flashed to the recurring dream that haunted my subconscious every night since arriving in Bosnia. In the dream I witnessed a cloaked figure slaughter an entire army of these creatures outside of ancient Rome. An army of giants. Making a mental note that I’d need some serious therapy when this was over, I focused back on the abomination at hand.
Clothed in what appeared to be the tattered uniform of a Roman soldier complete with sullied tunic, tarnished bronze breastplate, and makeshift sandals, it just stood there fixing us with an intent stare. Its eyes were a paralyzing solid black, like pools of oil, searing with uncontrolled rage. They bore a hole right through us with a sinister squint.
Watching us as if curious to see what we would do. Its mighty chest heaved up and down as rancid breath exited its furled mouth. Its head was covered in a thick black mane of disheveled hair with its chiseled face hidden well within a mangy beard, which was braided and crusted over with remnants of a recent feast. Its mouth stretched into a wicked grin, bearing ghastly double rows of canine-like teeth, dripping with a steady stream of elongated saliva or something clearly worse.
As if the goddamn shock factor of standing face to face with such a creature wasn’t enough to make you shit yourself and go blind, it then did something I was completely unprepared for. It spoke.
“Centurion,” its thunderous voice boomed from oversized vocal chords while looking directly at me.
Completely dismissing my injuries and associated pain, I instantly stood up with what I could only imagine was a clear look of disbelief.
“Father knew you would come,” it said. “But you are too late. The children are born. It has begun.”
“It has begun,” the creature repeated. “Again. Like before.”
Right about then I turned to a clearly confounded First Sergeant Coates and muttered, “Now. Now we’ve seen it all.”
And opened fire.
Chapter 6
Not having the benefit of any prior experience fighting in close quarters with a fifteen foot behemoth decked out like an extra in a gladiator flick, I figured it smart to shoot low. For the record, I blame this sort of thinking on my government education. That’s your tax dollars hard at work.
“Knees!” I yelled. “Take out the knees!”
Letting the flash-bang drop to the floor by my feet, I brought Bertha to my shoulder and squeezed off two slugs. Any hint of pain, resulting from my broken ribs and throbbing head, was gone. Replaced, instantly, with a turbo shot of adrenaline — driven by the desire to survive the next five minutes.
I drifted to my left as I fired an additional two more slugs, which hit home, smashing into the giant’s left kneecap. Tony took his cue and starting hammering the giant’s right knee with a deluge of burst fire from his M4. The sound of persistent gunfire within the confined area was deafening, but unfortunately not loud enough to drown out the laughter reverberating from our oversized foe. Without moving an inch from his original position, the menacing figure stood there and roared a hearty, ominous laugh. It was a bit unnerving, to put it mildly.
“Weapons of man cannot hurt Anak,” it bellowed amidst intermittent chuckles. “You are powerless against me, Centurion.”
With an unnatural speed that should not have been possible for a creature of such size and mass, it crossed the room in a fraction of a second and swatted Tony with a dominant backhanded blow, catapulting him into the sidewall of the vestibule. With its mouth curled into a wicked smile and still chortling, its eyes narrowed with focused fury as its attention turned solely on me.
“Enough play. My father will see you now, Centurion.” Pointing a massive finger at Tony, it growled, “Your legionnaire will furnish my morning feast.”
Realizing now that it was blood dripping from the giant’s foreboding jaws, I diverted my attention to the far side of the room where Tony’s body lay in a heap. I picked up slight movement. He was alive. Badly hurt, but alive. Instantly overpowered with a burning need for vengeance, I met the creature’s unsettling gaze.
“Hey, Tiny! Stop fucking calling me that,” I shouted as I nonchalantly reached down and picked up the flash-bang I’d discarded moments earlier. Pulling the pin, I counted to three and tossed it toward his mammoth face. “Catch.”
Quickly spinning around and shielding my eyes from the imminent discharge of blinding light, I heard the pop of the grenade followed by a thunderous howl of pain. Looking up I happily watched as my oversized foe staggered throughout the room with hands clutching his face.
“Blinded Anak with sorcery!” Its voice boomed. Followed by repeated screams of, “Centurion!”
“Thought I told you to stop calling me that, asshole,” I muttered feeling rather pleased as I quickly bound to Tony’s position. Propping his head up with my right hand, I said, “You OK, Big Sarge?”
“Not quite dead,” he answered with a pain-riddled face. “Fucking close though.”
“Need to get you out of here. I’ll come back for Doc and the Padre.”
Sliding his left arm over my shoulder I hastily got the First Sergeant to his feet and turned toward the front door.
Unfortunately, that was as far as I got. Tiny was waiting for me. And he was pissed.
Evidently done talking, he simply grabbed the First Sergeant with one brawny hand and threw his limp body over a massive shoulder. As I heard Tony wince in pain, I stepped backward and fumbled for another flash-bang. Before my hand reached my ammo pouch, Tiny violently grasped my tac vest and jerked me ten feet upward to eye level. With my arms and legs dangling in midair, I found myself up close and personal with the stuff of nightmares. I’m talking — no sleep for weeks — type of nightmares.
It was not pleasant.
With his teeth tightly clamped together, he was growling like a frenzied animal on the verge of tearing apart his prey. I could feel his torrid, festering breath envelope me in uncontrolled waves. The nauseating reek of copper and decayed flesh dominated the air. Images of the empty village filled my thoughts. The people didn’t leave. They were eaten. He fucking ate them. Fixing me with soulless eyes, he held me there for what seemed like an eternity. Fuming.
“After father,” he carefully said clearly holding back his fury with every ounce of his being. “You are mine.”
Without another word he effortlessly flung me across the room. As I made my second trip of the evening headlong into a wall at a high rate of speed, I watched him casually turn and lumber into the darkness of the sanctuary with Tony slung over his shoulder, and disappear. Not good.
So Tiny clearly didn’t have his heart set on damaging me much more than I already was because I was able to collect myself fairly quickly after slamming into the wall — again. With my shoulder throbbing, head pounding, and left arm now fractured I stumbled to my feet. Unfortunately for him and his aforementioned father, this was not over.
I was now officially pissed off.
Retrieving my shotgun, I dropped the magazine and popped in a fresh one. Expecting the sanctuary to be much larger than the vestibule, I slung Bertha on my back and opted for the M4 still clinging to my chest. I’d need the standoff distance and larger magazine capacity now that I was flying solo. Hastily loosening the assault sling enough to let the rifle butt seat into my shoulder, I took it off ‘Safe’ and muttered to myself, “So Tiny’s dad wants to chat. OK, asshole, Let’s chat.”
With the element of surprise clearly shot in the ass, I figured the situatio
n called for nothing less than a full on frontal assault. At this point in the mission I had nothing to lose. Approaching the entrance to the sanctuary I instinctively raised the M4 to a reflexive firing position and paused just outside the threshold along the wall.
Taking a deep breath, I buried the pain and focused on the mission. Focused on the sanctuary. Focused on Erin — Father Watson — Tony. As my mind welcomed the expected serene sensation, it poured over my broken body like warm, healing sunshine. Time crept to a transcending slowness and for a fleeting second, it stopped.
Like progressively emerging from a pool of water, my senses ignited one by one as I mentally broke the surface. I instantly picked up heartbeats. Several of them. Faint. Almost like that of a child. And there was death. Recent, unnatural death. And there was something else. An intense energy, a feeling of dread — and then there was only static. My senses instantly returned to normal. Something shut me down. I was blocked. Whether it was the intense pain I was feeling or something else entirely it mattered not. My edge was gone. I was on my own.
“Damn it!”
Dropping to a knee and bowing my head, I exhaled a long, controlled sigh. Pushing the immeasurable pain streaming through my body into a far away place in the back of my mind, I channeled the adrenaline, the fear, and the anger. I was as ready as I was going to be.
“The old fashioned way then,” I muttered to myself with renewed conviction as I rose to my feet. “Fair enough.”
As I broke the threshold with weapon raised, scanning for targets, I quickly realized I’d stepped into a whole new level of strange. Taking into account everything that’d happened thus far on this operation — that was really saying something.
If the smoldering town out side was a circle of hell, the church sanctuary was without a doubt its festering heart. Years upon years of training for this specific scenario could not have prepared me, in the least, for the harrowing scene laid out before my eyes. The sanctuary floor was completely cleared of pews and had the appearance of a warehouse, dimly lit by what appeared to be thousands of candles throwing malevolent shadows eerily dancing across the cathedral ceiling. To the right of the doors was a cavernous crater carefully excavated in the church floor, penetrating deep into the earth below. As I crept past the edge of the abyss, the stench of death and rotted flesh filled my nostrils. A grisly pile of discarded body parts was haphazardly strewn about the entrance.
“That’s cute,” I muttered cautiously squinting into the darkness. Hoping like hell Tiny hadn’t taken the First Sergeant down there, I kept moving.
The entire left side of the sanctuary appeared to be a makeshift hospital ward complete with at least a dozen shoddy cots posing as hospital beds, rusted IV stands, and jury rigged lamps running off what appeared to be car batteries. The blood spattered cots were occupied by unkempt women who appeared to be in a permanent state of shock. Or dead. There were cribs. At least a dozen of them, which glowed under the direct light of the lamps.
Slowly creeping closer, I started to make out modest movement and faint whimpers. Babies. Holy shit. It was an improvised frigg’n maternity ward. The guards dressed in scrubs now made sense. Well, not exactly, because none of this made any frigg’n sense, but at least it fit within the general parameters of the overall weirdness.
“The children have come —” I muttered out loud in a state of complete bewilderment, remembering the unsettling words spoken by the giant. Lowering my weapon and peering into the first crib that I approached, I found a healthy newborn baby lying on its back.
“My God —”
The child evidently sensed my presence and slowly opened its eyes. As they fully opened and locked with mine, I nearly shat myself. They were completely black. Like the giant. Completely stunned I jumped backward three steps and raised my M4.
“What the fuck?” I blurted out despite myself. As I contemplated what to do next, the silence of the large room was broken by a barely audible, desperate voice.
“Dean? — Is that you?”
I know that voice. Snapping my head toward the far end of the grisly row of hospital beds, I located the source. Barely visible in the dim lighting was a feminine figure slumped over the motionless body of a hapless patient.
“Doc!” I exclaimed lowering my weapon.
Hastily advancing through the labyrinth of sordid furniture and medical equipment, I reached Erin just in time to catch her as she collapsed from complete exhaustion. Her usual radiant face was stricken with terror, anger, and utter depletion. Hair mussed and scrubs speckled with blood, she hung limp in my arms. A steady stream of tears flowed from her sullen eyes as she tried to speak.
“He’s a monster,” she murmured. “Petrovich … These poor women … Dead … All dead … Father Watson … He’s … He’s —”
Without the ability to say anything further, Erin burst into tears and buried her face in my chest.
“It’s Ok, Doc,” I said fighting back the torrent of rage that instantly swept over me as I held her tightly. “It’s Ok. I’m here. Taking you home.”
“No! You don’t understand!” She yelled pushing off my chest with both hands. “He and that — that creature tortured Father Watson! Horrible things! “Fighting back the tears, her eyes filled with anger. “He made me — made me deliver all these babies. Said if I didn’t he’d keep hurting him.”
Pausing to catch her breath, she said, “They all died after they gave birth — every one. I tried to revive them but — they were just — dead. Petrovich laughed. Told me they weren’t important. Only the children. And these babies … They’re not — normal …”
As the tears returned, a now subdued Erin dropped her head despondently.
“Heard enough,” I grumbled coldly. “We’re leaving. Now.”
As I held Erin up with my throbbing left arm, I reached down to activate my throat mic. Time to call in the cavalry. I’d hand the Doc off to Luke and Mac then come back to take care of business. And I was going to take care of business. Hell or high water I would raze this place to the ground. Getting that distinct feeling that someone was behind me, I realized we were not alone in the sanctuary.
“The infamous Captain Robinson, I presume. Legendary warrior from the western world. Fearless commander of the venerable dark soldiers. What a fortuitous surprise. How I have absolutely yearned to make your acquaintance. Welcome, Captain, to the christening of the new generation. Please join me in this grand celebration. Champagne?”
Before I could react Erin instantly jumped from my arms and backpedalled several steps.
“It’s him,” she whispered. And stood behind me.
Slowly turning to meet the object of my indignation, I placed both hands squarely on my M4. As I laid eyes on Goran Petrovich for the first time, I couldn’t help being a bit taken back. He spoke perfect English without the slightest hint of a Serbian accent. If anything, he sounded British. The guy was every bit of six foot eight, if not taller. Seemed that urban legend got that part right.
He looked like a male model. Statuesque in appearance with meticulously styled thick, black hair that flowed to just above his broad shoulders. His eyes were utterly chilling.
A dominant, burning crimson with tiny, snakelike pupils — thoroughly soulless. I instantly recognized them for a reason I couldn’t quite put my finger on. He was wearing a suit. A really fucking nice suit complete with a pristine white shirt, royal blue silk tie, and gold cuff links. His features were striking as his mouth curled into a lascivious smile bearing perfectly white teeth. In one hand he casually waved an unlit cigar in the air. In the other he held a half filled champagne glass.
At this point I made a mental note to retract my earlier comment about seeing it all.
Now. Now I’d clearly seen it all.
“You Petrovich?” I barked.
“How I do enjoy Americans,” he snidely replied. “Abrupt. Straight to the point. No mincing of words. Cut to the chase.”
He paused to take a modest sip of champagne
and cast me an amusing glance. “Well, Captain, I’ve had many names and many faces through the years, but here and now, I am Goran Petrovich.”
Offering a theatric bow complete with clichéd hand gesture, he quipped, “And it is my sincere pleasure to meet you.”
“Trust me, handsome,” I said smiling. “The pleasure’s all mine.”
Raising my M4 directly to his chest, I then proceeded to empty the entire fucking thirty-round magazine. Round after round pummeled his torso at point blank range, spraying a gruesome spate of flesh, bone fragments, and blood soaked snippets of his really nice clothing throughout the air behind him.
“Waste of a nice suit,” I muttered, watching contently as his mangled body slid to the floor. “Should’ve dressed for the occasion, asshole.”
I ejected the empty magazine and tossed it on his tattered corpse. Slamming in a fresh mag and chambering a round, I turned toward Erin to find her huddled in a ball against the far sanctuary wall.
“It’s over, Doc. Time to get you out of here before Tiny crawls out of his pit.”
If witnessing such a remorseless act of manslaughter bothered Erin she sure as hell didn’t show it. Instantly rising to her feet she ran toward Petrovich’s corpse and squarely planted a boot in the side of his head for good measure.
“Fucking animal! Burn in Hell!” Turning toward me with a look of pure determination, she boldly declared, “I’m not leaving without Father Watson.”
Rise of the Giants: The Guild of Deacons, Book 1 Page 6
