by Aiden James
The object soon became more defined, as a figure with its arms pointed forward—like superman without a cape.
Kaslow?! No frigging way!
But it was Kaslow. And as he bore down on us, using his freefall to point his body toward the hovercraft, the hatred in his face was far worse than ever before. He would be landing on our vessel at any moment. Provided he didn’t crash into us first.
Chapter 16
Before my enemy landed in the back end of the hovercraft, I thought for certain Tampara’s efforts to elude him might work. The ship took off with far more speed than we’d experienced up until that moment. But, whatever Kaslow’s keen intelligence had picked up about wormhole use, it proved to be enough for him to catch us. If not for the terrible danger we were in, I might’ve broached my curiosity with a few coy questions. Then again, should we survive this latest attack, I could pose my questions to Roderick instead, whose insights into the heart and mind of this fiend had proven accurate thus far.
When Kaslow landed inside the hovercraft, he immediately somersaulted toward me. I was his primary target…or, so it seemed at first. He stood up, and pulled out a dagger with his left hand and his favored Steyr with his right. He was all business this time, and I figured he intended to dispatch me first before moving on to the other immortals on the ship—the opposite approach from when he invaded the castle cavern’s bunker. He had plenty of firepower with him to easily eradicate us all, despite trimming down his arsenal. The barrel from a lone assault rifle peered above his left shoulder.
However, instead of an attack upon my person, he leaped back to the corner where Amy and Alistair were huddled together. My son moved to block him.
“Viktor, this is between only you and me!” I said, fearful of the knife and my son’s dangerous proximity to it. “Take me, if you must, and I’ll give you the coin, freely. Leave everyone else out of it!”
“Why? Are you afraid of what I might do to pay you back for how you’ve almost ruined my day?” he said, menacingly. “Surely you know by now I can claim your fucking coin anytime I want. So, tell your goddamned driver to slow down now or I’ll gut them both like pigs for slaughter!”
I felt shamed by how easily we were disadvantaged as a group. Kaslow was bigger and stronger than all of us, except Tampara. But he was also armed, where none of us were. Not even Tampara, who apparently had little need for such things as weapons in the world of the Yitari.
Tampara glanced over his shoulder, and then looked over at Roderick before lowering his arms. The ship slowed down, dramatically. He turned around to face Kaslow with a disgusted scowl on his face. Cedric and Roderick wore similar frowns, although more worried, and I detected nothing from either one to give any hope a plan was forthcoming.
My heart pounded heavily as I watched Alistair ball his fists, as if he planned to jump on the back of this behemoth who was facing the front of the hovercraft with his gun pointed at Tampara. Kaslow sensed my son’s hatred and wrath, as well. Before Alistair could react, Kaslow deftly sliced through the leather strap securing my boy’s wrist, and then used the same hand to grab him by his shirt. He threw Alistair toward me. The force of my boy’s airborne body slamming into me sent us both tumbling to the ship’s floor.
Before we could stand up again, Kaslow had moved over to Amy. He wrapped his right arm around her neck to keep her from collapsing to the ground while she kicked and fought in vain to get away. All the while, the Steyr’s barrel remained trained upon Tampara’s chest. Kaslow was in complete control of whatever happened next.
“Let her go, Kaslow—you vile asshole!” shouted Alistair, who eyed me hatefully when I prevented him from going after the monster. “Damn it, Pops—Let me go!”
“What?! And watch him kill you before my eyes?”
Kaslow chuckled meanly.
“Let him go, William—let him go so I can filet him while I test-drive his bride to be.” He lowered the gun’s butt to where it rested upon the top of Amy’s right breast, and pressed it against her while moving it in a circular motion. “By the time your driver brings us all back to the castle, she should be good and ready for me. Just like she was when I put my knife’s mark on her in the Alborz. You, Alistair, were an old man back then, with no hope of satisfying such a fine piece of ass as I could do then…and can do even better now!”
When Kaslow assaulted Amy and Alistair in the Alborz, it was in large part my fault. I should’ve prevented it, somehow—even though they had purposely eluded my company when they set out to rescue Amy’s brother, Jeremy Golden Eagle. That event was now more than two years in the past, but the guilt on my part had never subsided. It never does for me.
I couldn’t let something like that happen again. But, there wasn’t time to come up with a well-conceived plan to rescue her from the rape about to ensue. My only recourse was to rely on my most base instincts and whatever combat lessons I had learned during the past twenty centuries.
Before my son could get himself butchered to death, I managed to wrap his wrist with my leather strap and secure it with a tight knot. Kaslow had failed to notice I had removed it from my wrist, even before the hovercraft slowed down. Using my ensuing struggle with Alistair as a decoy for my true intent, I flung myself toward Kaslow’s left side, where he held the dagger, hoping for a non-fatal plunge of the long serrated steel blade. Though my survival was unlikely, my hope was to carry enough momentum to knock him out of the ship—even if it meant me tumbling to the earth below with him.
Of course, there was the risk of Amy coming with us. But the look of hatred and rage in her eyes while Kaslow fondled her gave me hope her survival instincts would inspire her to slip away from him. This had to work…and yet even other things had to fall in place. I yelled with my mind for Roderick to hear me, and in turn for him to urge Tampara to somehow get the hovercraft moving again.
As I feared, my enemy plunged the blade into my stomach. In the next few seconds, I expected for him to begin twisting it and moving laterally to ensure enough of my vital organs were severed to the point my death would follow in under a minute. He was too strong to budge…. But if nothing else, I at least didn’t sit back and idly watch Amy be brutally assaulted and dispatched—along with my son being murdered, too—without trying to do something about it.
I would’ve died willingly, with no concern for my own welfare. However, I had no illusions of stopping Kaslow permanently. He had become the devil incarnate to me.
While I waited for the excruciating pain from being eviscerated to commence, something unexpected happened. It was premature to assume we were all unarmed. I thought of only handguns. I had failed to consider that Cedric carried a combat knife strapped to his ankle. Thankfully, his aim had improved over the years, as the Gerber flew just past my head and landed squarely in Kaslow’s throat.
Until then, none of us had any idea what could kill our enemy. My favored theory was it would take some sort of robotic device to pin him down long enough to dig out the crystal shard from his chest. But as Kaslow’s physical stature and abilities were in constant evolution, I had begun to think there was little hope of ever killing the bastard.
What happened next was mostly a blur. Although in retrospect, I can see the individual frames play out much more clearly. Amy did slip away, barely. Kaslow fired at Tampara, whose image suddenly distorted to the point he wasn’t solid. To our amazement, the bullets ricocheted off of him. I glimpsed this after pushing myself away from the dagger, which Kaslow promptly dropped while reaching for the smaller knife in his throat. He pulled it out, fighting what appeared to be a losing battle to stave off the gush of blood erupting from his throat. He gagged while trying to scream something—threats that came out as mere wheezes. Meanwhile, the wound in my abdomen closed up.
I felt an incredible sense of joy and thanksgiving that I might live after all! Better yet, Viktor Kaslow was about to die. That belief was spreading. I saw the hopeful expressions on Amy’s and my son’s faces, as well as on Cedric’s.
Yet, shots were still coming. Apparently, a few bullets remained in Kaslow’s weapon.
Cedric suddenly howled in pain behind me. A loud roar from someone else soon followed. It came from Tampara, whose body had solidified. He roared again and threw his head back, similar to what Roderick had done beneath the ancient archway we encountered the previous afternoon.
“Judas, push him over the side!” Roderick shouted. “He is not going to die from the wound ...I can see the tissues inside are mending. Push him now!”
Kaslow chuckled as I turned toward him, barely eluding his downward thrust of Cedric’s knife. The last shot from his gun had resounded just seconds earlier, and I heard the click of a vacant chamber. Still, anything in this behemoth’s hands could be considered a weapon. He could use it to club the entire lot of us to death.
The hovercraft suddenly picked up speed. Keeping my feet would be an increasingly difficult challenge. Certainly, Kaslow’s body mass gave him an advantage in that regard. I didn’t believe I could successfully budge him if we were standing on solid ground—much less in our present circumstance. But I had to try, despite the likely plunge into my torso of another deadly blade.
I doubt Kaslow saw the airborne feet strike his chest and face any sooner than I did, since his entire focus had turned to me once more. His assailant was the most diminutive member of our group, Rafael, who smiled proudly until the knife held by Kaslow plunged down into his collarbone.
“Keep pushing him, Judas—don’t stop!” urged Roderick. He and Francisco scurried over to where Rafael writhed on the ship’s floor in pain. “He’ll kill us all if you don’t succeed!”
Rafael’s blow knocked Kaslow back to where he leaned over the edge, struggling to keep his balance. I had my opportunity to finish the deal. Almost.
Knocking Kaslow out of the ship should have been enough, especially since the hovercraft’s slippery exterior finish was designed to keep the giant lizards and other creatures from the Yitari’s world from climbing into the vessel. But it didn’t prevent Kaslow from somehow digging his fingers into the ledge to secure a hold. Dangling high above the forest below, he leered at me.
“When I climb back in there, I’m going to turn you inside out!” he said. “Then I’ll tear the girl from limb to limb and shove every bit of her down Alistair’s throat!!”
He started to lift himself, but then was distracted by what was going on around him. I, too, had failed to see the world around us change. It was as if nighttime had descended upon our sunny afternoon.
But that was just the beginning of the transformation. The earth below seemed dead and desolate. Yet, I could tell from certain landmarks it was the same place…just in a different realm. The volcanic mountains were more active than in Tampara’s world. Rivers of lava flowed beneath us, and intense heat emanated toward the ship.
As incredible as this was, it paled in comparison to the hundreds of angels hovering in the air along the hovercraft’s left side. They kept pace with our speeding aircraft. Moroni was there with another archangel, whose purple mane of lustrous hair, luminous gold eyes, and facial features were as striking as Moroni’s. They both were frowning, and their wings fluttered continuously, as if barely able to resist the urge to attack a black horde of ugly screeching creatures that filled the air on the other side of the ship.
“Oh, my God…. Bochicha’s Emissaries are here,” whispered Francisco, almost reverently. My son’s and Amy’s worried gasps had drawn his attention to the gathering multitude. The ship began to slow down.
The angels didn’t move to protect us, which made me think about the last thing Moroni had told me. I understood they couldn’t interfere to save any of us. Meanwhile, Tampara confirmed my silent worries that the hovercraft’s sentient material had picked up on the encroaching danger and wouldn’t attempt to plow through the demons blocking our path.
“Why in the hell did you bring us here, Tampara?” Alistair asked him, in a way that implied a good friend had betrayed us.
“It is the only way,” said Tampara, sounding less authoritative and somewhat vulnerable for the first time in my presence. “I have foreseen—as Roderick has—that this man will destroy the world—your world. Since we are all connected, the destruction of the realm you and my Essene friends reside in would soon spread to my world. I can’t let that happen. I won’t let that happen!”
“Well, isn’t this lovely!” Kaslow chuckled. “Go ahead and take us wherever you’d like to die, asshole! It doesn’t matter where you go, I can kill you just as easily.”
He continued to chuckle until he noticed several demons hovering just below his feet. I’m not sure how he missed the growing horde moving steadily closer to him. Francisco had told us quite a bit about these former brethren of the angels during the angelic portion of our little icebox tour last night. It came in response to one of Amy’s questions. The demons were the same height and they still had wings. But everything that had once been beautiful was no longer so—the punishment from Elohim for their defiance against Him.
Their skin was translucent—similar to Ophanim’s skin from the Garden of Eden. But unlike that angel’s shimmering gold undercoat, what pulsed inside these beings looked like putrid flesh. Their wings were bat-like—not unlike the Mothmen I once briefly mentioned in an earlier account. And, instead of human hands, they had sharp, bird-like claws. Their eyes were misshapen, despite the shimmering emerald color. But their mouths were the worst. Their mouths were filled with long jagged teeth. Teeth, I should say, that were dripping with the putrid slime and what looked like blood from earlier kills.
These horrid creatures have a craving for flesh. Human flesh, in particular, since we carry a sweet flavor. This was apparently how Moroni once described the demon’s palate to Rafael a couple of years back, when these creatures had returned to the earth plane for the first time in many thousands of years.
My point to all this?
Well, I thought some folks might want to know what Kaslow’s reaction was when he finally realized it was to his utmost disadvantage to be hanging outside the hovercraft as he was right then. Perhaps the best ways to describe it was comical, sad, or even amusing. The most fun for us was seeing his reaction when the three demons below him suddenly looked up and opened their mouths in anticipation of taking huge bites from his dangling limbs.
Kaslow fought desperately to climb out of harm’s way. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t do it. And, he failed to get his massive hands around the ship’s ledge enough to help pull himself up. Especially with me pushing his fingers away.
The demons, that seemed to understand from the angel’s presence that the rest of us tasty morsels were off limits soon surrounded Kaslow. He began to whimper.
“William…please. Let me climb back on board, and we can talk about this,” he said, forgetting the father and future father-in-law he was addressing. “We can come to some agreement.”
“Indeed, we already have,” I told him. I was unable to suppress the smile that had tugged at the corners of my lips for the past few minutes. I pushed his fingers further.
“William…no,” he pleaded, although years of not showing any compassion to others had made him a terrible mimic of what it should sound like. No doubt, he was genuinely terrified—just like any other predator faced with extinction. I could feel his dire fear growing inside of him, compounded by the fact he surely understood the elation behind my smug satisfaction.
“No!”
That was the last thing he said, as he tried to raise his fingers for an instant in order to trap mine beneath his. He missed, and then he fell. Screaming
Hard to say if he was to die in the air or if the horde that carried him away planned to savor his presence for a while. We didn’t stay long enough to find out. Tampara delivered another of the primal screams he shares with Roderick, and the world around us began to change once more. Sunshine replaced the dimness that belonged to the realm of demons that serve Bochicha. My last impressions were the ec
hoes of Viktor Kaslow’s fading screams and the sight of one immense angel of Elohim hovering momentarily before us.
Moroni smiled, and although Alistair swears it wasn’t so, I’d like to believe he winked at me. He then disappeared with his fellow warriors in a flash of light.
Chapter 17
The sense of relief I felt in knowing those I cherish—and the very world for that matter—were safe from the menace of Viktor Kaslow was indescribable. Incredibly overwhelming was what came to mind the quickest…until I discovered that two of my companions had been seriously hurt during the melee.
Rafael escaped a deathblow, but he was still bleeding from the knife wound to his upper chest. Francisco managed to slow the blood loss with a makeshift compress, and I felt confident our diminutive and heroic Essene friend would survive.
But, as I mentioned above, there were two casualties. Cedric took a bullet to his right side, when Kaslow tried to riddle Tampara with gunfire. Roderick determined that the hollow point shell had destroyed most of our old friend’s liver. Without a miracle, he would die.
To that end, Tampara lowered the hovercraft to where it skimmed across the treetops of the forest expanse below. He was looking for something specific, I could tell, and would glance back compassionately at both Cedric and Rafael while guiding the vessel. Amy wrapped her arms around Cedric when he started shivering from his body’s falling temperature. He didn’t have long.
“The healing powers of a hanging moss that clings to the younger branches of the carnacs will buy us time.” Tampara scanned the area as he said this. His gaze settled upon a tree that had been spared the recent feeding in the area from a herd of giant reptiles resembling Brontosauruses. He stopped the hovercraft in midair, next to the upper branches, and grabbed a handful of the strands that reminded me of the Spanish moss growing abundantly in the Deep South of the United States. He brought three of the strands to my son, who attended to Cedric with Roderick’s assistance, and then gave the remaining epiphyte to Francisco for Rafael’s wound.
