Fists of Iron: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Clans of Shadow Book 3)

by J. A. Cipriano

  It was technically the same shape as your typical car battery in that it was rectangular, but past that it was whack. The thing was really more of an ornate jewelry box of finished red wood, inlaid with gold and fitted with copper corners and edging. It culminated into two engraved copper spirals on the top. Battery wires were clipped into place by alligator clips that, well, were sculpted to look like actual alligators.

  As I reached for the battery, another mighty footstep shook the ground. I didn’t dare look toward the ultimate kaiju battle between Cthulhu and Giant-Sized God. Now was not the time to spectate. Not when time was of the essence.

  A roar of agony and frustration tore out of John’s mouth. It was followed by a squishy sound that made me think of a kraken slapping its tentacles onto the deck of a ship and pulling all the sailors into the sea. Then the magical dome around us shattered.

  A triumphant chorus of meeps, growls, and gibbers assaulted my ears as the monstrous horde came at us with tooth, claw, and tentacle. A battle cry erupted from our ragtag group as they met the monstrous charge with gunfire, knives, and magic. Not that it mattered. We were horribly outnumbered. Still, their effort would buy me time, and that, more than anything, was what I needed.

  I lunged for the first battery cable, ignoring the buck-ass naked ghoul loping toward me on all fours. There was only the faintest shock as I yanked the cable away, which is better than what I can say happened to the ghoul as it leapt at me because Tyrone’s shotgun roared and a burst of flame hit the thing’s rubbery head.

  Unfortunately, it was just a glancing blow, burning flesh and spilling blood but not stopping the ghoul’s forward momentum. It crashed into me. My feet went out from under me and I fell sideways. The only thing that kept me from cracking my skull open on the ground was my grip on the battery cable in my hand.

  I struggled, trying to regain my balance as the creature shook itself and lunged at me. It’s nasty, gore-caked teeth snapped at my face as I decked it in the jaw. It stumbled sideways into Garuda’s waiting beak, knocking the support aside. I had half a second to let go of the battery cable before the hood came crashing down on the thing.

  It struggled to get free of Garuda, and while the car fought vainly to keep the hood down, it was too weak, what with having half of its battery cables torn away.

  I drew my Colt as it tore free of the hood and shoved the barrel right between its slavering jaws.

  “Outta my face,” I growled as I thumbed back the hammer. Its yellow eyes went wide right before I pulled the trigger. The thing’s head didn’t do much to muffle the thunderous report of the big gun, let me just say.

  Ears ringing, I let the creature fall to one side and turned toward the Thunderbird. I pulled open the trunk as a bunch of those faceless bat things came swooping in fast. Ignoring the flying bastards, I tore the other battery cable free.

  Garuda’s headlights went out and the engine idled out with a last crying sputter. As I pulled the battery free, the beating pulse of magical energy within it tingled in my hands. We had our power source, costly as it may have been. Maybe that was the sacrifice the prophecy talked about? I could only hope it would be so little because from the way things were looking, there was no way we were all going to make it through this.

  “Frank, duck!” Gabriela cried out as I spun away from the car.

  I dropped. Wind rushed overhead as a fleshy, pulpy thing exploded above me, showering me with bits of gelatinous goo. I threw a glance at Gabby as I wiped my face with my free hand, but she wasn’t looking at me anymore.

  “Doctor, please confine the Peacekeeper while I try to exorcise the demon.” It was the most urgency I’d ever heard in Abner’s voice and I while I couldn’t say why, I knew it meant one thing. The demon was taking over John, and he didn’t know how to stop it.

  Part of me wanted to help, but I couldn’t. Not now at least. I ignored it and the ringing in my head and pushed off the ground. I tucked the battery under one arm and made my way back toward Tabitha.

  Only a few hundred feet away, two titanic figures clashed. The slime-dripping Old One faced off against the wrathful Mega-God. Swarms of flying angels and winged monsters battled all around them in a tremendous cloud that reminded me of gnats flitting around grappling soldiers. I had to hurry, if they got much closer, we were definitely going to be collateral damage.

  Worse, now that Gabby’s shield had shattered, nearly everyone had been pushed back into the chalk circle Tabitha had painstakingly drawn onto the street. If that got damaged, nothing would work.

  Molly’s entire right side was covered in blood, and she had her arm tucked up against it protectively while Tyrone stood at her back, firing indiscriminately into the mob. His barrel chest was covered with thin quills, shrapnel, and something otherworldly I couldn’t quite discern.

  Krishna stood just beside Tabitha, swinging his ichor-covered mace into the horde. Every time he attacked, something died, but at this rate he’d need a lot more arms to make even a dent in the horde coming for us.

  Part of me wondered why he was still here and not helping God face down Cthulhu, but I was sure glad he’d decided to stay, if he hadn’t, we’d have been toast.

  I sucked in a breath that smelled like death and slime and ran toward Tabitha and Max. They were in the center of the circle, sitting opposite one another. She was busy leading him through an intricate chant I that made the sigils glow with sputtering chaotic light. They needed more power. Well, I could give them more power.

  “No!” John cried, and stupidly I turned toward the sound. The ancient corruption that had infected John had gone full Akira.

  The right side of his body was covered with cancerous, pulpy muscle that had distended into one writhing tentacled mass. Abner was chest deep in the monster clinging to the Peacekeeper, unable to do little more than hold him in place.

  “What the fuck?” I mumbled, suddenly unable to take another step as the grotesque monster threw Abner aside and lumbered toward me. Its pulsing tentacle arm came up as I turned back toward Tabitha.

  Abner managed to grab onto John from behind, his huge red hands clamping around the peacekeeper as I began to move. Still, it felt like I was in slow motion, like the air had turned into pudding.

  “Frank, get out of the way!” Gabby cried right before a pulsating tentacle speared me neatly through the left shoulder.

  A scream of pain tore from my lips as the tentacle wrapped around my arm and jerked me violently backward. My head bounced roughly off the ground, but somehow, I managed to keep my right arm clutched around the battery.

  I couldn’t hear out of one ear as the thing lifted me up into the air. I met John’s gaze, only it wasn’t him anymore. Sure, he’d been an asshole before, but what stared at me was the cold gaze of the abyss. His lips twitched into a distended, Joker-esque smile right before he slammed me face first into the ground.

  My nose broke and my vision went blurry as he lifted me up once more.

  “Come, Bearer,” it snarled in a voice that was John’s only by the barest degree. “How about you join me for a little snack.

  The mass oozing out of him parted down the center, revealing a hideous, gaping maw.

  “Fuck you,” I growled as I tried to kick at it. If my blows hurt it, I couldn’t tell.

  Either way, the next thing I knew, it pulled me into its mouth. Squishy, gooey slime wormed over my head, micro tendrils lashing around my legs and my torso.

  “Frank!” Gabby cried. She stood transfixed by what was happening. Her fingers were dancing in a pattern I’d never seen before, but other than that, she seemed stunned into immobility.

  I tried to break free, to struggle, but I couldn’t get away. I was truly fucked, but at the same time, I was strangely at peace. I was only a few feet from the circle.

  I tore my right hand free of the tendrils clinging to it as the writhing mass pulled me deeper inside its gullet and flung the battery toward Gabby with every ounce of strength I could muster. “Take it to Tab
itha! Don’t fucking worry about me!”

  The battery sailed through the air as the creature’s jaws slammed shut, sealing me in darkness, but as it did, a sense of relief hit me. I might die, but they’d survive, and if they survived, so would the world, but more importantly, so would Mom.

  Abner shouted something, but I could only make out a hollow echo through the gelatinous shit sliding over my head. The thing holding me shook violently, and as it did, the tentacles loosened their grip on me.

  John spoke then. Not corrupted John, but good old Grade A asshole John. Only he didn’t sound like so much of an asshole now.

  “Gabs, you have … to do … it … you … have … to kill me … parasite … heart … lungs … save Max.”

  A horrific screech erupted from the thing holding me, and the tentacles cinched down even tighter as the shifting, oozing primordial mass engulfed the rest of my head. I couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t want to anyway because thin tentacles of corruption were sliding up my nostrils.

  Veiny threads of sinew wrapped around free arm and pulled me down, and after another second or so, everything went from the grey press of flesh on my eyelids to straight black.

  And then there was light.

  It was accompanied by a dull thud inside the monstrous mound, like a depth charge blasting through water. The fleshy cocoon holding me in place evaporated in a burst of white hot flame. I collapsed right on my ass, convulsing with coughs, my lungs desperately screaming for oxygen.

  I might have been alive, but John Perez, the last Peacekeeper, definitely wasn’t.

  His torso, both good and bad, blown to pieces, human flesh, and corrupted tissue alike were being eaten away by a white hot flames. If what John said was true, then both the real man and the monstrous parasite inside him had been connected by his vital organs. That must have been why it was dying because several of those organs had been reduced to ash by the white flames.

  John had to have died in moments, and when he did, the beast within him died right alongside him. Yet, for all the agony he had to have experienced at the end, John’s face, the part that hadn’t been consumed by the monster, was strangely at peace.

  I drew myself onto one elbow and weakly looked around. The battery lay on the ground a few feet from me, strangely untouched by anyone. I started to move toward it, but I was still wound up in the tentacles.

  “Are you okay, Frank?” Abner asked as he reached down and tore away my fleshy bindings with his big red hands.

  “Yeah, I think so,” I mumbled as I got slowly to my feet and picked up the battery.

  “Good, I would be sad if you died.” He took a huge breath, but I smacked him on the shoulder because the chant was picking up behind me. Unfortunately, there were still no portals, probably because they hadn’t gotten the battery. Well, that was about to change.

  “We’re not out of the woods yet. Can you clear a path to Tabby?” I waited until he nodded.

  “It will be done, Frank.” As he began to move, smashing ghouls and whatnot into twain with his red fists of clay, Gabriela’s heart breaking sobs nearly shattered everything within me.

  She stood there, not three feet from her husband’s body. One of her arms was outstretched, her hand wreathed in sickly green light that was only now starting to fade. Her eyes were wide and unblinking, but the tears were rolling hot and hard down her cheeks while her chest heaved with unending sobs.

  “Gabriela, I…” What the fuck could I say? What could possibly make everything better? Not a damned thing.

  Gabby’s arm dropped as the light blinked out, and without a rational word, she slumped to her knees. I was about to reach out for her when Abner grabbed me by the shoulders.

  “Bearer,” he rumbled from behind. “Frank. There is no time. The battery…”

  I snarled in frustration as I shrugged off Abner’s hands. I wanted to curse at him, to damn him for forcing me to worry about the bigger picture, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t his fault.

  A giant snarling worm with dripping, puss-filled tentacles was bearing down on the circle, and our battered friends had been shoved back to the edges of the chalk. Abner was right, there wasn’t any time left.

  That’s when I had my super Frank idea!

  “Tabitha,” I cried. “Catch!” I chucked that fucker across the circle. It was a real Hail Mary, especially with one arm mostly useless from the hole in it, but as fucked over as it was, we were in Heaven.

  If there’s any place a miracle throw would work, it was here. Tabitha’s eyes snapped open as the battery landed in her outstretched hands. She quickly set it on the ground between her and Max and nodded to the boy.

  “You can do this,” she whispered, holding her hands out above the battery.

  “Okay,” he replied, one part fear and two parts guts.

  In weird synchronicity, they grabbed the battery’s prongs with both hands and let out a final shout of “APERIT!”

  The chalk circle lit up like a supernova, sending lances of light up into the sky. The ground shook as the very fabric of space ripped itself asunder along the perimeter of the circle. Runes, hieroglyphics, and other symbols scrawled in white light in the air around them burst to life.

  The air blew out with a shockwave, throwing dust and debris outward with hurricane-like force that made everything and everyone across the battlefield take notice of what we’d done as the gods came.

  Odin, Zeus, Thor, Sif, Hera, Amaterasu, Guan Yin, Sun Wukong, the Buddha, Shiva, Vishnu, and thousands more poured forth from the great beyond. Entire pantheons, spirit kings, animal lords surged into battle with the old ones. The grounds of Heaven were filled with the collected personified beliefs of the entire human race, and for once, they were filled with a single purpose: to save the universe.

  I can only really sum it up into one phrase: It was fucking awesome!

  Lightning flashed, thunder roared, winds tore, fires burned! Hammers, blades, arrows, lutes, pipes, and samisens clashed! And the gods were winning. With each blow they struck, they pushed the formless chaos back, until in the end, at the edge of the mist-wreathed plain before the shattered gates of Heaven, the Great Cthulhu stood defiant and undying.

  He was ankle deep in the bodies of god a chaos beast alive. Neon green ichor oozed from countless wounds as he snarled and fought at the edge of the yawning void of space from where it had come. As the beast let out a keening shriek that pierced right through my soul and made me fall to the ground and roll into a crying ball, the divinities summoned all their collective power and surged forward.

  The army of the gods hit Cthulhu like an inevitable wave. The collective might of the divine warriors hammered the Great Old One while the masters of the elements, the skies, and the earth below conjured up a combined onslaught. That final blow, the combined force of what I called the collective faith of the human race, slammed into the monstrous chaos beast with the power of a hundred thousand atomic bombs.

  It vaporized every last bit of debris and carnage from the plains outside Heaven. The flash was like staring into the Sun, forcing me to avert my eyes or risk having them burned right the fuck out of my skull.

  There was one final gibbering, undulating cry, the strangled song of defeat from the Great Cthulhu’s tentacled maw, but the silence that followed it was almost more profound.

  For a second, I thought the explosion had made me deaf, but as I cracked open my eyes, I realized it was simply the great, smothering silence of peace replacing the endless roar of battle.

  The Great Old One and the remnants of his primordial horde were gone, banished to the void beyond in that moment of overwhelming sound and fury. The collective divinities of Earth were scattered, spent, wounded… but victorious.

  25

  Even three months of recuperation and enhanced healing from la Corazon didn’t save my shoulder from the aches and pains that came when it rained. Naturally, it had been raining all morning. There were a lot of pieces of pick up and put back together after the whole Heav
en Incident, as the wizards of the world were deciding to call it, and I was one of the people tasked to help do that, which meant I got stuck with paperwork. I know, save the world and you get to write a report. It hardly sounds fair.

  Not that anyone had put a gun to my head and demanded it. Hell, technically it had been my idea, though I honestly would point blame at Krishna, if I could. The main issue was that having Peacekeepers hadn’t been a bad idea really. Sure, maybe it had been implemented wrong and taken way too fucking far with that whole “perversion of the natural order” shit, but at its core, it made a lot of sense to have a group of capable individuals ready to deal with magical emergencies that could threaten the entire world. You know, like the wizardly Avengers.

  That’s how Krishna had put it after everything was said and done. I was just the one stupid enough to agree. Then someone who shall remain blue and nameless had made a snide remark about how maybe the guy who was immune to magic might not be a bad choice for the guy to try to regulate magic.

  There were upsides, of course. This swanky corner office in the Pendleton Building, for one, and Mom certainly adored her new condo. The pay wasn’t bad by any stretch and the work, well, it was shitty but a hell of a lot more fulfilling than kicking packages around.

  I also netted myself a hell of a crew too. True to the One’s promise, Rabbi Krakowski was the first wizardly crook I took in and, true to my promise, I took care of Abner. He’s a hell of a Deputy Chief, if I do say so myself. Then I was lucky enough to recruit Molly and Tyrone. They might be a little … unconventional … but everything these days was unconventional. They also made one hell of a cute if odd couple.

  Mom did not fail to remind me that was another ship I had let sail away without me. Oh well.

  Still, despite having three kick-ass agents on tap, I really needed more people out in the world at large. Who knew when somebody would decide, in some far-flung corner of the world, to go down the same path the Whites or the Enders did? As always, the clock was ticking.