Blood sprayed, coating Scylla’s broad face and eyes.
Watson couldn’t see what happened next, but he could feel it. The remaining tentacle wrapped around Scylla’s body, puncturing the thick, fungal skin with countless needle-sharp hooks. There was a sudden jerking movement and then electric pain, as all the hooks were torn away, like duct tape on a hairy chest.
Air rushed past, and then, as the blood ran away from Scylla’s eyes, Watson saw his predicament. Ashtaroth had flung him. Scylla couldn’t fly, but she was airborne just the same, more than a mile up, and completing an arc that would take the kaiju plunging back down to Earth.
Can Scylla survive this? Watson wondered. Can the Voice inside her?
Despair replaced his anger. He’d failed his family. His wife. His son.
How can I survive this?
Tuck and roll.
He tried to angle Scylla’s body so its arms would reach out first, angling for a roll that would reduce the impact. But he was still unaccustomed to the size of the monster’s head, and he put Scylla into a somersault that would end with a backflop atop a mountain.
But before he lost sight of the mountain below, he saw it change shape. The jagged, spine-breaking peak became concave. And loose. It looked almost soft. Powdery.
It’s Fiona, Watson realized.
He had no idea where the woman was now, and he had seen no evidence of her attacking yet, but she was clearly working her magic on the landscape. Like Rook, she was using her ability tactically, supporting her team, rather than just launching herself into the fray.
The impact was jarring, and it burst the air from Scylla’s lungs, but the soft, airy earth absorbed most of the crash. A plume of dust exploded up around Scylla, like a volcano had erupted. Watson couldn’t see. Couldn’t move, either. He was wedged into the mountain. But then the ground beneath him trembled, and he felt Scylla’s body pushed up and deposited back on its massive feet.
Watson said, “Thank you,” but it came out of Scylla’s gaping mouth sounding more like, “RaaRoo.” Despite the lack of enunciation, Watson was pretty sure Fiona would understand the sentiment.
The curtain of dust parted, as Scylla took one long step forward. The creature’s wide set eyes slipped into the clear air, and Watson flinched in surprise. Then he reached out and caught Scrion. The small kaiju had a plate of armor clutched in his jaws. They fell back together, Scrion rolling away as Scylla fell back.
Watson shoved himself upright again, and turned to check on Scrion. The small kaiju was back on all fours, but instead of running, the creature was making eye contact with Scylla.
Rook is trying to tell me something.
Scrion spat out the plate of armor. It wasn’t large, but it was something. He nosed it once, tapped it twice with his claws, and then nodded his head toward Ashtaroth.
He wants me to focus on removing armor, Watson realized. If they could do that, then Hyperion’s Gunhead attack would have more effect.
Watson nodded and put Scylla’s hands out, giving a thumbs up. Scrion barked a roar and charged away, taking a circuitous route to flank Ashtaroth, who was currently engaged with both Nemesis and Karkinos.
The two big kaiju seemed to be holding their own for the moment. Their attack was both savage and coordinated, the kind that could be delivered by the pair of experienced fighters attached to the monsters. Tail strikes punctured flesh. Claw swipes loosened armor. And when Ashtaroth brought its tentacle hands to bear, they slammed down on the large spikes protruding from the kaijus’ backs, taking more damage than it could inflict.
Watson sent Scylla into a run, flanking Ashtaroth, like Rook, but in the opposite direction. While the giant was fully engaged with Nemesis and Karkinos, he might have a chance to inflict some real damage. He focused on the creature’s thigh. While he would like to take out the creature’s shoulder, he had no way of reaching it, hundreds of feet above his head. But if he could make the thigh vulnerable to Hyperion’s attack, maybe they could injure the leg and bring the creature’s more vital areas down to an attackable height.
Nemesis and Karkinos attacked together, dragging their claws through Ashtaroth’s inner thighs, perhaps looking for the kaiju equivalent of a femoral artery. Rook turned toward his target and charged. Watson did the same.
Without the use of radio communication, the attack was a coordinated masterpiece—for all of three seconds.
Ashtaroth’s squid hands opened wide, like tooth-filled parachutes with tentacles. Then they descended over Karkinos and Nemesis. The giant spikes covering the two monsters’ backs punched through, but the much larger kaiju seemed immune to the pain. With Karkinos and Nemesis in its grasp, Ashtaroth spun in a tight circle, sending its half mile long tail spinning around like an armored mace.
Rook sent Scrion into a leap, but was struck anyway. He curled up into a ball just before impact, and was sent rolling away like a soccer ball, careening up and over a mountainside before tumbling from view.
The tail continued around, catching Scylla’s legs, and sprawling the giant monster backwards. From his position on the ground, Watson saw Nemesis and Karkinos flung away, their bodies covered with blood—Karkinos’s purple, Nemesis’s red—from thousands of puncture wounds covering their backs.
In that single instant, the course of the fight shifted back into Ashtaroth’s favor. But Watson couldn’t stomach the thought of that. He pushed Scylla back to her feet and charged—alone.
Ashtaroth turned to face him.
Watson lashed out, swiping his hooked claws across the monster’s midsection. He carved a trough into the thick skin, which resembled Nemesis’s. There was no blood, but there was a glimmer of white skin beneath. He drew back for another strike, but missed when he was plucked from the ground.
Tentacles wrapped around his arms and waist, immobilizing him, as he was lifted higher into the air. Watson kicked out with Scylla’s big feet, but his struggles came to an end when Scylla’s legs were lowered into the hooked confines of Ashtaroth’s wide open mouth. Like a boa constrictor swallowing its prey whole, Ashtaroth gulped down Scylla’s lower half, and then with a mind-numbing pressure, the creature bit down.
Scylla roared with Watson’s anguish, as her body was bitten in two at the waist. Organs and muscles stretched out and snapped, as Ashtaroth pulled Scylla’s torso away.
The roar of pain fell silent.
Watson’s view of the world started to fade along with Scylla’s life, her blood flowing away with each slow pump of her heart.
I’m sorry, Watson thought, thinking of his wife and son. I failed you.
Then, through his fading vision, Watson saw Typhon. The monster launched itself from a nearby mountaintop. As he soared through the air toward Ashtaroth’s head, he lifted two massive stone blades, no doubt forged by Fiona.
With the last of Scylla’s energy, Watson opened his mouth, twisted down and bit hard, burying the kaiju’s long teeth into a tentacle. Scylla went rigid as she perished, the teeth locked in a death grasp. As Watson’s vision went black, he realized that while Scylla had died, he was still alive. But without air, he would soon share the kaiju’s fate.
Ted Watson had just minutes to live.
38
HUDSON
Crazy’s dead. Snapped up in the jaws of a monster.
It’s an unfitting end for a man like Crazy. Not only was he a fearless and accomplished warrior, but he was also my ride back to the Dimension Zero’s real world. I don’t know if it’s possible for the Dread to move us between worlds, like Crazy could, but they’ve lost their collective mind. Without Crazy, Mephos and I have, at most, fifteen seconds before we’re overwhelmed.
Less, I decide as the Dread-croc that swallowed Crazy whole turns its attention toward us. It takes two sloshing steps in our direction. Mephos turns to face it, arms open wide, claws ready to attack. I take aim with my shotgun, about to tear it apart.
The Dread-croc twitches, and my trigger finger locks in place. The Dread can’t talk,
and I don’t know much about their behavior, but I recognize pain when I see it. The thirty foot long creature arches, its head angled high, its tail curved up and its legs splayed out wide in shock.
A muffled crunch is followed by a wet tearing sound. A black blade rises through the croc’s snout like it’s suddenly grown a horn. Then the blade traces a line from one end of the upper jaw to the other and slips back inside. Fingers emerge next, pushing apart. Crazy looks like the Biblical Sampson as he emerges, but instead of pushing apart massive stone pillars, he’s peeling apart the face of a Dread-croc. He steps out of the ruined head, covered in luminous yellow gore. The look on his face shows no fear, but a healthy dose of impatience.
“A thing of beauty,” Mephos says under its Ferox breath.
“Only you would think an animal being torn apart was beautiful,” I say.
Mephos glances up at me, where I’m still clutching his hair. Then he motions to Crazy with his head. “I was talking about him.”
Crazy sheaths Faithful on his back, wipes the gore away from his eyes and says, “Keep up.”
Then he takes off for the hive like nothing happened.
What happens next fills me with a mix of emotions. The first being fear. It rolls off the man in waves, and while it’s not directed at me, I catch a whiff of what he’s doling out and it makes my insides quiver. I feel Mephos cringe beneath me for a moment and I know he felt it, too.
Crazy told me about the ability, to send waves of fear into anything capable of feeling it. It’s a trait he picked up from the Dread, who have been using it to frighten people for thousands of years, spawning stories of ghosts and boogeymen. Crazy wields it like a weapon, pushing wave after wave of fear out in front of him. While I’m not really a Bible reader, I can’t help but see him as some kind of Old Testament hero, splitting wave after wave of Dread like Moses parting the Red Sea. It’s just really fucking impressive to watch. And despite the residual fear trickling back to me, it’s inspiring.
I kick my feet into Mephos’s sides and pump one of my fists in the air. “Faster, Falkor. Faster! We have to hurry!”
While the theme song for The NeverEnding Story plays in my head, Mephos growls at me but says nothing. He’s too focused on dodging trees, bodies and sinkholes.
We run at a pace I could never match and carve a path through the madness, heading for the hive. It looms large, like half of Epcot’s geodesic dome, rising from the ground. We angle toward a black entrance. Crazy doesn’t hesitate to run right in, unafraid of the dark, because he’s not afraid of anything, and because his weird Dread eyes have no trouble in low light.
Instead of following the long winding path to our left, which looks like it descends in a slow spiral, Crazy launches himself at the wall straight ahead. He curls up like a cannonball, slaps into the papery wall and plows right through. My grip on Mephos’s hair tightens. My legs squeeze his waist. And then we’re through the hole as well, plummeting twenty feet to the floor, and then through a second wall that Crazy has already thrown himself through.
“This!” I shout, as we careen through the wall. “Ugh.”
“Is!” Another wall. “Ah!”
“Fucked!” Another wall. “Oof!”
“Up!” The word blurts from my mouth as my chest slams into Mephos’s back. I nearly let go, but our frantic journey has come to an end. We’re in a circular chamber lit by a collection of glowing veins, identical to those that cover the Dread.
The floor is littered with bodies, torn apart, most dead, some dying. But none of the gore holds my attention for very long. The matriarch is at the center of the room, wriggling from side to side, the lower half of its elephant-sized body lodged in the earth. It shrieks in pain, writhing about, as the tendrils emerging from its star-nose mole of a face spasm.
“This is what’s driving the Dread mad,” Crazy says, drawing his desert eagle handgun. “It’s psychically linked to them all. Some kind of energy from the real world is affecting it.”
Crazy steps closer, reaching a hand out. When he’s just a few feet from the matriarch, his hand snaps back.
“What is it?” I ask.
His eyes shift as he looks between worlds. “I don’t see anything.”
“You’d call it a force field,” Mephos says.
“Like the one you said would shield the mothership?” I ask.
He nods. “It must be affecting the Dread world to some degree, but it’s not impenetrable here.” He turns to Crazy. “Can you return us to Dimension Zero?”
“Yeah,” he says. “But it’s going to hurt like hell.”
“Do it,” I say. “But what’s on the other side?”
Crazy looks back and forth. “Looks like a hallway, but I think it’s a ventilation shaft. Should be safe. Ish. I’ll send you two through and then catch up.”
“What are you going to do?” I ask, not exactly thrilled about losing our tactical advantage.
“With the Matriarch dead, those Dread are going to be lost. I’m going to give them a direction.”
I smile. Reinforcements would be nice. Then I look at the shrieking Matriarch, still very much alive. “But—”
Crazy takes aim with his handgun and pushes forward. He grits his teeth as his arm pushes through the invisible barrier. “Feels tingly,” he says, though I can tell it’s a little more than tingly. What it’s not, is strong enough to fully repel him. Maybe in the real world, but not here. Crazy pulls the trigger three times. Glowing blood and bone spray across the room. The Matriarch falls limp, the top of its ugly head now missing.
“How thick is the force field?” Crazy asks.
“No more than a foot,” Mephos replies.
“Then let’s go ten feet,” Crazy says. “Better safe than limbless.”
“Is that fear I hear?” I ask, mostly trying to delay the intense pain I think is coming.
“I’m fearless,” he says. “Not stupid. Now, go!”
Crazy takes a few steps back and then bolts forward, his whole body contorting in pain as he breaches whatever effect the force field has on this frequency. Then Mephos and I hit it, too. A scream rips from my lungs as my body feels like it’s been unmade, like my atoms are being squeezed through a strainer before reconstituting on the far side. Then I feel Crazy’s hand on my shoulder and the pain ends.
Darkness envelops me, and the sudden shift between frequencies sends Mephos into a spasm. I fall from his back, the impact of my body hitting like a gong on the metal floor of wherever we are. I can hear him convulsing like a dog about to puke, but he contains the urge.
“You okay?” I say with a groan. The pain experienced in the Dread world is still filtering from my body, along with the gut churning effect of shifting frequencies.
“Hgnh,” is the reply.
“Crazy?” I ask. I can’t see anything. When I get no reply, I assume the man has already shifted back into the MirrorWorld.
“He’s not here,” Mephos says, still able to see. “This way.”
I hear him walking, his talons tapping the floor, but I only make it two steps before colliding with a wall.
“Get on,” he says, and I feel his hairy mane brush against my fingers. I really don’t like being up close and personal with Mephos. He’s kind of a dick. But my limitations aren’t hard to see, and we’re running out of time. The Aeros could end reality in a day, or in ten minutes. We have no way to know.
The next ten minutes pass in silence as we move through the darkness. Then, a light. White lines on the ceiling reveal light from below. A vent, I think, realizing Crazy’s assessment of the location was correct.
We approach the grate slowly, sneaking up to the edge to peer through. We get a good look down at the same time and reel back in unison, as a pair of Aeros eyes look back at us.
A bright orange beam of light carves through one side of the vent. Hot globs of melted metal rain down. We try to flee, but the whole thing tilts downward, dumping us out. As we topple down, Mephos grabs hold and cradles me in h
is arms. He lands on his feet, no worse for the wear, and puts me down. I really, really feel the need to make some kind of quip and recover from the embarrassing rescue, but then I see what we’re up against. My words, for the first time in recorded history, are shocked into submission.
39
I’ve got a creative expletive for this situation. I know I do. But I can’t think of it, and I find my mouth unable to form any sound beyond, “Uhhh,” which lingers, until Mephos backhands my leg. Faced with certain death, the Ferox leader is embarrassed by me. But I’ve got news for him, no one looks cool when they die. Dignity and nobility vacate the human form, right along with whatever is contained in the bowels. Right now, for me, that’s a Baby Ruth and a can of Cherry Pepsi. While not remotely health food, the sugar and caffeine helped wake me up. On the plus side, when I loose that Baby Ruth into my pants, it will look just about the same as it did going in.
The image brings a smile to my face, and I can see it confuses the enemy staring us down. There are fifty Aeros, all between thirty-five and forty feet tall, dressed for battle. Their writhing tentacle faces and pale bodies are protected by armor that looks both medieval and futuristic. But my smile unnerves them, like I know something they don’t. The Ferox are crafty and skilled warriors, and humanity is their protégé, so it’s possible the Aeros are actually overestimating what we’re capable of right now.
Wouldn’t they love to know I was just thinking about shitting myself when I died?
The Aeros warriors are armed with familiar weapons—swords, spears, shields and clubs. I wonder why they’d use such Earth-like weapons, and then I realize that mankind’s weapons of war were likely inspired or created by the Ferox, who share a common ancestry with the Aeros.
But the Aeros have other weapons as well.
We’re standing at the edge of a massive open-air clearing, surrounded by a wall that I don’t really think is a wall. It’s part of a large device, the center of which is a quarter mile away. The tower rises two hundred feet in the air and ends at a sphere. Standing behind the Aeros forces is a young Neo-Prime. It’s only one hundred feet tall, but it’s still intimidating as hell, and it looks ready for a Jon Hudson snack.
Project Legion (Nemesis Saga Book 5) Page 24
