by Joey Ruff
“You saw the feed. You know what’s happening.”
He turned away from me and looked at Huxley. “How do I make my wish?”
“Say the creature’s name and then tell it what to do,” Huxley said. “Do you know its name?”
“Yeah,” DeNobb said. “It told me it’s… Reb, Ret… Shit.”
“DeNobb,” I said. “Make the right choice.”
“I am,” he said, not turning to me. “It’s, uh…Reiko. I think.” He held the braid up in front of him and called into the night, “Reiko! Find Nad…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. I punched him in the back of the head, knocking him flat on his face. I felt bad doing it, but I had to.
He rolled onto his back and looked up at me. He was bleeding from his nose where he’d hit the pavement. His eyes held a look of horror as he stared directly at me, making eye contact, and saying, “We really aren’t friends, are we?”
“Told you, mate.”
He shook his head, maybe he started to cry a little.
“Do it again,” I said. “This time, make the right choice.”
“Or what? You’re going to fucking hit me again?”
I pulled my FN and aimed it at him, realizing what I was doing a second too late, but not caring any more.
“You’re really going to shoot me?” he asked.
Huxley moved around the car and stood between us. “You’re out of control, Swyftt. Put the gun away.”
“We need to save Ape.”
“And Nadia?” Hux asked.
“I can save Nadia. I can’t save Ape. Not by myself.”
“You can’t save everyone. Nor should you feel the need to.”
I didn’t say anything, and I certainly wasn’t crying. Not even just a little. But I was going to be damned if I lost one more… Especially after Chuck.
“You’re only human, Swyftt. You have nothing to prove. Anna was not…”
“Anna was my responsibility!”
“But her death was not your fault.”
“But if I don’t do something, right now, Ape’s death will be.”
“No,” Huxley said. “He has his role to play. We all do. Right now, our role is here. It’s right now.” Almost as if on cue, someone on the next street over screamed. Huxley turned for a moment, then looked back at me. “Make your choice.”
I took a deep breath and lowered the gun. I shook my head. He was right, though I hated to admit it. I was wasting time with this argument.
I looked at the golem and nodded.
When I walked around to where DeNobb lay on the ground, I saw he’d dropped the braid, and I stooped to pick it up. As I walked past him, I threw the fucking thing at him. “You win,” I said.
I turned and walked over to where the passenger door stood open and reached in, pocketing a handful of magazines. I looked at the first one, popped the bullet out. It was iron.
“You guys find Ezra,” I said, turning away from the car and walking across the parking lot toward the source of the scream.
“Where are you headed?” DeNobb called.
“I really need to shoot something.”
35
Ape
The violet light on my staff was quickly joined by the soft glow of green among the roiling pond water. It looked like a dozen fireflies swimming just below the surface of the pond, and while they twisted and toiled below, they gave off very little light beyond the water’s edge.
Around me, the Edomites seemed spellbound, not only by the water’s glow, but the cane’s. Omri stood, walking a few steps closer. He, like the others, was wide-eyed.
I felt my heart sink into my stomach. Looking back to the tree line, I called, “London!”
“You know what this is?” Kol asked, turning to me.
I nodded. “But I sure hope I’m wrong.”
“What does the light on your staff mean?” Avim asked.
“When the sword’s blade glows, it means the… Well, it means trouble.”
The green fireflies, which at first flitted haphazardly around, began to pair up, only inches apart. Then, one by one, the lights began to surface. Pale gray tentacles broke from beneath the waves.
Behind me, London cried out. I turned to find him running from the low hills in a half-limp, the flamethrower strapped to his back, a semi-automatic rifle in one hand and the bag of guns in the other. “Squiddly bitches!!” he screamed. I wasn’t sure if it was terror or excitement in his voice.
While I wasn’t sure at first what the six tentacles were, I was certain they didn’t belong to the Kittim that we’d fought before (and that London was hoping they were). As London neared, all six turned their pair of glowing fireflies toward him, threw open their mouths, and roared. The six gray, snake-like tendrils weren’t tentacles at all, but heads.
Omri looked at me with contempt and said, “I sure hope you lead better than you swordfight.”
I didn’t have time to answer before Kol asked, “What in the devil are those things?”
I walked over and picked Omri’s blade from the grass and handed it to him. “Those are trouble,” I said. “But it’s not multiple things. It’s just one.” They all looked at me. “It’s a neak.”
London threw the bag of guns down and didn’t stop until he hit the shore, throwing the barrel of the flamethrower around to the front and pulling the trigger. A column of flame shot out, engulfing the first two heads.
The other four reared back, and then all six together, shot toward London with such veracity and speed, that he dropped the flamethrower’s wand and scrambled backwards. As they neared, the heads of the neak grew taller, and then the first of its feet broke from the water’s depths and touched down on the shore.
While the Edomites rallied around me, London stood his ground, laughing as he pulled the trigger again. Fire engulfed three of the creature’s heads, but the heads just made a noise and motion very like a sneeze, shrugged it off, and pressed forward. The neak took another step, bringing its second foot out of the water.
“Why is this bitch not burning?” London called.
“It’s immune to fire,” I said. “Neaks are hybrids; they’re bred to kill dragons. The Naga used them to kill the last of the…” I smacked my head with an open palm as the realization set in. “Of course, you’re looking for…” I turned quickly to Omri and said, “Who hired you to bring this here?”
Omri shook his head. “I do not know. Josiah and Boaz met with the benefactor.”
Behind me, London screamed and dove to the side. I turned to see all four of the neak’s feet on the ground, with only its tail slithering and sloshing around in the water still. Despite it having just hatched, the thing was huge. No doubt, its quick growth was a byproduct of its hybridization and accelerated by the water, which was characteristic of several water dragons. Its body was already the size of an elephant’s, and each neck grew like a giraffe’s from between its front shoulders, but each head moved on its own accord, slithering back and forth, up and down, like a serpent, rather than a typical vertebrate.
Each of the neak’s heads was barely distinguishable from the rest of its neck, with a nose that tapered to a point, and eyes set in the sides of each head. There was a faint jaw line that was only pronounced when one opened its mouth. In truth, the creature looked more like octopus tentacles sprouting wildly from the body of a small brontosaurus.
Two of the heads were bearing down on London, and he had either given up on the flamethrower or run out of fuel. He was in need of help.
“London needs us,” I said.
There was a general murmur issued from the bulk of the Edomites, but Omri continued to glare at me in contempt. “Look,” I said, turning directly to him. “I beat you, okay. And we can sit here and talk about that, or we can put it on the backburner for a few minutes and band together to fight this thing. I only see one of those options allowing everyone to see the sunrise.”
His brow creased thoughtfully as he considered my words, and slowly
, his expression began to soften. It wasn’t what you would call friendly, but it was certainly less hostile. “We will put our differences aside for now,” he agreed. “But I would rather chop off my dick than call you aluf.”
Beside me, Levi stepped forward and handed Omri his quiver and bow. “Boaz has vanished,” he reported.
“That’s not good,” I said. “How long have you known him?”
“My entire life,” Omri said. “He is a brother. Why do you ask?”
“Because I just watched him hatch a neak egg in my backyard, and since they wake up hungry and it seems he’s left us to be its breakfast, he isn’t exactly playing for our team.”
“That was our mission. We were hired to bring this creature here.”
“Did you know what it was?”
“I…” Omri looked at the dragon-like creature and shook his head slowly. “Never would I imagine such a horror.” He looked back at me. “But Boaz would not leave us to be eaten by it. It is supposed to show us our target.”
“Well, he did,” I said. “And I’m not even sure the target it even here at present.”
“I also saw,” Levi said.
“We will deal with that later, also,” Omri said. His gaze lingered on me. “Then you know our intended mark?”
I held his gaze for a minute. “Yes, but you’ll have to go through me to get to him.”
London had retreated to a safer distance, abandoning his flamethrower all together for something a little more comfortable to him. As his rifle began to bark, the bullets struck the nearest head and turned its attention toward London.
“How many bows do you have?” I asked.
“Three,” Levi said. “Kol and I, along with the a… Along with Omri.”
I pointed to London. “You guys back him up.”
I turned to the other three, Avim, Eres and Silvan. I pulled my sword from the cane and said, “You three are with me. Focus your attacks on the body. Not the heads as...”
Before I could finish my thought, London’s bullets riddled across the neck of the creature and up and along its jaw line, effectively severing that head. The long, slender neck dropped to the ground like a fallen tree, and the head nearest it turned its attention to the fallen limb, gnawing at it with fierce teeth. Within seconds, the second head had eaten meatily through the neck of the first, and the entire neck lay on the ground like a swollen, limp eel. As the Edomites began cheering around me, two small sprouts began growing from the open wound, snaking and sliming their way out and up until they were as long as all five of the other heads. Then, every mouth on the neak opened in unison and let out a shriek. Then the creature turned what was now all seven of its heads toward us.
I turned to the three Edomites that accompanied me, which had drawn their blades, and nodded. I charged forward, holding my sword out before me, the violet light shining almost white in my glasses. I felt the Edomites fall into step just behind me.
The heads shot forward like tentacles. I dodged the first, hurdled the second, and hacked into the third on instinct. Realizing a second too late that I didn’t want to sever it, I pulled back, but the cut was deep enough to incapacitate it, and another head began immediately chewing through the base of its neck. Beside me, Avim and Eres were each hacking through a head of their own, and after a second, the neak was taking a few steps back as the remaining heads pruned hungrily at its useless appendages.
Within minutes of the initial attack, the neak had doubled its original head count, growing two more for everyone that it lost, just like a hydra, of which it was also cross-bred against. It charged forward again, faster and bolder than its initial approach. It was young, probably scared.
Heads shot out at us from what seemed like every angle. As they neared, I noticed the point at the end of each, what could be described as a nose, was hardened and sharp, like a tooth or a claw. Each head was like the tip of a spear, and with less experienced opponents, I didn’t doubt the neak would have speared through an army.
The Edomites, however, were highly skilled, both in agility and swordplay. Even Avim, who was the youngest and least experienced in battle, was easily better than I with his blade. I watched him deflect two heads with one stroke, focusing his blade attacks on the hardened noses. I nearly missed the head that slithered along the ground, completely under my line of sight. It sprung up at me at the last second, and I caught it with my blade. Another head thrust out at me, and I twisted my shoulder just in time, but it drew a faint, hot line across my back.
Avim was to my right. He threw his foot forward, catching one head in the eye, which momentarily blinded it. Spinning, he clove through another head.
“Get to the body!” I yelled to Avim. He cast a quick glance and nodded to let me know he understood, but the heads kept coming. There were twenty or more at this point, and the more heads that sprouted, the bigger the body of the neak appeared to grow, as well. From what I could tell, the elephant-sized body had swollen to nearly double its original size.
Behind me, I caught Kol and Levi’s eyes and directed them to the torso, as well. They both nodded. I looked around for Eres and Silvan, but couldn’t see either clearly. All I could make out were the faint glow of muted red and orange heat that registered in the glasses, but they were overrun with the white and blue heat signature of the creature.
“Don’t sever the heads!” I yelled, but even as I did, another had snuck too close unexpectedly, and I spun on it, biting deep into it with my blade.
As two more heads moved for me, I heard the report of a new gun, and then one of the Edomites yelled, “I cannot get close enough.”
I couldn’t count the number of heads that had grown. The creature looked like a writhing briar patch, and the blue heat of the creature soon drowned out any other heat signatures. Even Avim, who had been the closest to me, had disappeared from view.
Behind me, I could still just make out the red glows of Levi and Kol. I knew London was a little further back on the right. Omri registered off and to the left. I tried to focus on heads directly in front of me, hacking and slashing as fast and as furious as I could, but the blue and white was everywhere I looked. I kept turning my head, keeping the archers in my peripheral vision to keep my bearings.
The thought kept running through my head that if I could just press forward, get close enough to the torso, I might be able to get underneath the creature’s legs and stab up into it. Previous experience with a neak had told me that while the body was more armored with scales than the necks, you could angle a blade to wedge in-between where they overlapped each other.
Yet, even with that thought, there was an underlying fear that going any further forward would be sudden death. It was all I could do to keep the heads at bay from my current position. Any closer, and I’d lose my bearing, become distracted, and lose what concentration I was so far able to maintain.
In the background, I could hear the plunking of strings, the whizzing as arrows cut through the air. Undercutting every other noise, though, were the constant reports from London’s guns. I would say rifle, but what began as the sound of a rifle continued to change in pitch and tone as he would exhaust the ammunition in one weapon and just exchange the spent for the next, which was already loaded and ready to go. It was faster to change guns than magazines.
Everything moved fast. All around me, blurs of white and blue heat signatures snaked and slithered. My legs and arms bore a myriad of shallow cuts from the neak’s spearheads, and more continued to bite out at me. Heads, two and three at a time, spiraled toward me, and I did what I could to deflect without severing, but inevitably, heads fell in favor of self-preservation. Another head shot directly toward my head, and I dodged just in time, sending it past me and into the air. A second later, the head pulled back, pierced through with an arrow, slinking down into the mass of necks and disappearing.
After less than a minute, I lost my bearing. I had only taken a few steps forward, seeing a slight lull in the neak’s advance, but suddenly, I
had nothing in my periphery. Everything had gone white. I spun my head wildly to either side, catching no signs of red or orange anywhere, only the burning of my sword, only the myriad of green firefly lights swarming toward me from every direction.
In what seemed like seconds, I was completely overrun. The original six heads had grown far too many to count. I couldn’t even see the neak’s body any longer, didn’t even know which direction it was. I was suddenly awash in a sea of brambled heads. I couldn’t even see anyone else. I focused on the sound of gunfire and plunged my blade forward.
Without intending to, I had found myself braving my fear and hurling myself forward anyway. The problem was, now that I was in the thick of it, I felt incredibly overwhelmed. Heads on every side of me, necks entwining around my neck. Breathing started to become more of a chore. My head grew lighter. Panic surged around me. I tried to focus my breathing, despite being winded from the constant exhaustion, despite not being able to stop moving. I found myself stepping forward with each lunge of the sword and quickly realized that moving forward would likely be the only way out. I just needed to reach the center.
I took a deep breath, swung a mighty arc in front of me, clearing the area for maybe three feet and for the span of about three seconds before it was quickly filled with more heads. I swung again, cut open another area that was quickly filled. It was pointless. I was drowning.
“We need to retreat!” I called, starting to break out in a panic. “If you can hear me, fall back!”
I turned, trying to fight back the way I thought I had come, thinking maybe we could just regroup. As soon as I turned, I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder and screamed. One of the spearheads pierced my side, my leg. A head wrapped around the wrist on my sword hand and squeezed. I couldn’t get enough leverage to swing the blade.
From somewhere around me, I heard someone cry out, long and painful. I didn’t know who it was, but the cry was suddenly, abruptly, cut short, and I knew he didn’t make it. Someone else cried out, and I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
