by Kenny Soward
The language of magic.
The communication cables were tethered to the gate’s surface by screws and strange electronic devices. Lonnie assumed those were what would carry Kristanna’s voice through the gate to reach them on the other side.
Draped around a stone spike at the top were pieces of vine and ivy, all of it gone brown since Torri had brought it down here. The gate’s surface was a silvery shimmer. A mirror that never reflected, just sucked in the light.
He remembered a similar gate from his first visions months ago when he’d started coming out of his stupor and realizing who he was. Standing here now, the gate’s energy was vibrant. This was the connection to his home.
Lonnie swallowed and blinked. He couldn’t stop staring at it.
A second later, Bess’s head popped up, and she trudged through the water and up some steps to stand in front of the gate.
Jeff coughed and sputtered where he huddled next to Tuck and Betty. “Has anyone talked about what a dumb idea this is? Because I wasn’t at the meeting.”
“Knock it off, Jeff,” Bess said. “Keep the line clear.”
Alex snorted. “Do I have permission to give Fat Boy a wedgie if he keeps it up?”
“Not a bad idea, soldier. Do you want a wedgie, Private Jeff?”
“Is it a date? If it’s a date, then sure.”
“Yes, Alex. You have my permission.”
“Thanks, Boss.”
“Okay, people. Upon crossing, you’re to stay together by the marker at Outcrop #1. We have no idea if there will be sand storms or if our entry point has been compromised in any way. That’s what Tuck and Betty are going to find out.”
Someone touched him on the arm. It was Elsa, water dripping from her sharp chin. Her eyes glowed down here, an effect that had clearly spooked some of the ECC commandos, many of them unconsciously pressing away from the whorchal.
“Hey.”
“Hello, Mister Lons. You still hate when I call you that?”
“No. I kinda like it now.”
“What do I call you when we reach the other side? Mardokh?”
“Let’s stick with Lons for now. I seem to relate to that guy a little better.”
Elsa nodded, but then her eyes were drawn to the gate. The shimmering surface there. The unknown known that lay beyond it. And damn if Lonnie wasn’t struck by how incredibly beautiful and dangerous the whorchal looked just then. She was almost too hard to look at, but he looked anyway.
“You look nervous,” he said.
“I’m never nervous.”
“You’re lying.”
“Yes.”
Bess triggered a device on her wrist, then put her hand to her ear. “Communications check,” her voice came in loud and clear through Lonnie’s ear piece. “Can everyone hear?”
Everyone raised their hands to indicate they could.
“All right. Once, again, keep the lines clear. Especially Jeff. Only team leaders are to use them unless you are specifically called out. Got it?”
“Yes, Commander!” came the collective call.
“Okay, we wait here for Torri and Kristanna to come online.” Bess went to one knee.
They huddled in the chilly water for what seemed like forever. Alex rolled his head around to loosen his neck. Other commandos continued their prayers while they waited, making the sign of the cross.
Finally, Kristanna’s voice punched through the line. Her tone was thin from traveling through the communications lines to the gate, and then to the tiny speaker in his ear.
“Base to M2. Reading M2?”
“Got it,” Bess returned. “We’re a go here, Base.”
“We’re a go here, M2. You are cleared to proceed.”
Bess shot a look at Tuck and Betty. “All right, you two. Get in there. Go, go, go.”
Tuck and Betty ripped off the protective plastic from their weapons, casting it into a bin sitting beside the gate, re-holstered their handguns, and hefted their MP5s. With a nod to one another, they leaped into the silvery surface together, parting the veil with barely a ripple or splash.
And then they were gone.
“Is Torri online, Kristanna?”
“Affirmative.”
“Tuck, Betty. You reading me?”
A burst of static over the line, and then, “Yes, Commander,” came Tuck’s voice, sounding like he was speaking from the bottom of a well. Might as well have been. It was Hell, after all. “Checking Outcrop #1.”
There was a pause while the scouts went about their business on the other side.
Part of Lonnie itched to jump through the gate and see if his old home world felt familiar. Part of him didn’t want to know.
Tuck said, “Commander, Outcrop #1 is clear. You can proceed through the gate.”
Bess nodded to Alex, then Nina and Diallo, each team going in until there were only four of them left. Lonnie and Elsa edged forward until they were standing at the foot of the steps. Bess was about to go in when she glanced back over her shoulder at Lonnie, her eyes beneath the shadow of the white lantern lights they were leaving behind.
“You ready for this, man?”
“Never been more ready.”
“Yeah, don’t turn into a demon or anything when you get over there,” Jeff said. “Cool?”
Bess gave the medic a quick elbow in the chest and leaped through.
Jeff rubbed his chest for a moment, then followed.
Lonnie and Elsa climbed the top of the stairs, repeating what they’d seen the other commandos do with their weapons. They ripped off the sealed plastic and tossed it in the bin, tucking their handguns away.
And then they were staring at one another in the strange light.
“I could use a cigarette right about now.”
“I could use a fresh drifter, ripened by the streets.”
Lonnie chuckled. “Well, maybe you’ll get more than that on the other side.”
Elsa’s grin was wicked. “Are you ready to go home, Lons?”
“Not really home anymore.”
“Well, almost home.”
“Yeah. I’m ready.”
And without another word, the two exiles jumped into the portal’s shimmering surface.
Chapter 24
The screams of the dying ECC commandos tore through Lonnie’s earpiece as he hunkered down atop a dune so hot he could feel it through his suit. He watched a creature that could only be described as half-man, half-scarab beetle, take up Scotty Sawyer (still firing his weapon into the thing’s strange and twisted torso) in its clasping pincers and jerk, cutting him in two.
Blood sprayed across the sand, deepening the crimson color.
“Steady, team,” Bess’s voice came through without a single hint of fear where she and Alex, Betty, Tuck, Jeff and another commando waited for them in the shadow of Outcrop #2. “No more pairs. Come single file spaced at ten yards, please. Watch your crossfire. Take a route around the rim of sand to the west. See it?”
Rachel Dillard had been about to go next. She panned left in the direction Bess indicated. “Roger that, Commander. The rest of us are coming across.” She glanced back, motioning them to follow; Thomas, Lonnie, and finally Elsa. The last to cross.
The other two commandos who’d been following Scotty and Sean, turned and headed for the ridge, dragging a stumbling Sean behind them, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the bloody sand.
They’d come through the gate just fine and moved out in twos. Made it over the two big dunes without any issues, red sand scrunching beneath their boots. The team had moved so fast, and with such precision, that Lonnie hardly had time to register being back in Hell.
Elsa and Lonnie had both pulled their masks down, breathing in the air of their old home world. The atmosphere weighed heavy in his chest. The faint scent of sulfur wafted across the Wastes stung his nose. Towers of rock loomed above them, yet he dare not look. Lonnie’s head spun, his guts turning with anxiety. Otherwise, he didn’t feel a da
mn bit different here in Hell than he did back on Earth.
There was no extra strength or power. No more memories flooding his brain.
It was disappointing.
Now, as they moved up the line and angled left, Lonnie saw the trap of sand they’d fallen into. A slightly lighter shade than the surrounding spots, likely their footfalls having roused the scarab creatures living below. He vaguely remembered learning about the scarab men as a child, some lesson he’d only half paid attention to.
The two commandos pulling Sean to the safety of the ridge turned and fired, their rounds kicking sand five feet into the air.
The red grains swirled around their feet, and a scarab creature burst upward, naked but for the faded shift thrown over its shoulders. Its carapace-like skin was a few shades lighter than the sand, a hard beige color, darkening where the carapace was the thickest—at the elbows and knees and tips of the chitinous hood. The pincers sprouting from its powerful neck stretched four or five feet in length. Blackened. Ridged with sharp spikes and strong enough, Lonnie thought, to tear chunks off a small car with no problem.
It caught Sean around his thighs and slammed the curved pincers together, cutting through the ECC suit, flesh, and bone, snapping Sean’s legs like matchsticks.
Sean’s scream ripped through their earpieces.
Lonnie winced, but drove forward as the other soldiers, afraid to shoot Sean dead, focused on the other three scarab creatures that had just burst from the ground.
The armor piercing rounds did their work, blasting chitin and ichor across the dune. They destroyed one and sent a second creature squealing back into the dune. But the last one was hot on the trail of another commando.
Silvershard grenades went off with heavy thuds, and Lonnie found himself running through a shower of sand.
Two ECC members were down, one definitely dead, and Lonnie raced to try and save another. On a whim, he let go of his weapon, allowing it to hang from his neck, and swiped his left hand over his right in an offensive sweep.
The sudden surging energy took him by surprise, bursting through his body and almost knocking him off his feet. Glancing sidelong at Elsa, he saw her eyes wide and focused, like a predator, face having taken on more severe angles, her jaw elongating, her teeth pressing out. A line of reddish drool escaped, dripping over her chin to roll off her suit.
They ran together, stride for stride, and even her legs seemed to change, to grow longer, lighter, almost gliding her across the sand.
Lonnie felt the power in his arm swell dangerously. His breathing changed from labored to greedy, sucking in the sulfuric stuff like a car engine sucking the perfect mix of gas and oxygen. It was an exhilarating transformation, his body waking up to the source of his power. Hell. Like Torri’s pond in the essence of magical infusion, but more bone-saturating. Something that clutched at the very core of him and blossomed.
The lone commando on the ridge dropped his empty MP5, fell on his ass, and scrambled away, frantically pulling his pistol. The scarab creature chasing him rose, clicked those huge mandibles together one time, and then lunged.
Lonnie reversed his sweep, drawing the energy around his arms and shoulders. He caught the mandibles, planting his foot squarely in the thing’s back. Power pinged around inside him like thousands of volts of energy. He felt like he could run through a brick wall.
He stretched the carapace head higher until the chitin all along its shoulder blades and torso cracked. Twisting its head, it tried to get away, but Lonnie had the fucker tight. Then he threw his arms wide, splitting the mandibles apart like a wishbone, bathing the sand in purplish ichor.
He turned to Bess and the ECC commandos standing by Outcrop #2 with a huge grin on his face. He tossed one gore-covered mandible into the killing field, and started to throw the other, but another scarab man exploded from the sand. With hardly a thought, he turned and swung the broken piece like a baseball bat, knocking those grasping, clicking jaws aside before bringing it down on the thing’s head with a resounding crunch.
Lonnie glared into the sand pit, beating his weapon against the ground. “Come on, motherfuckers. Come on!”
Elsa crowed, hoping to get her turn.
The motherfuckers did not, in fact, come on.
Torri sat in the same uncomfortable chair they had her in during the first raid. She’d had the forethought to find a cushion and put it under her butt, and threw a couple pillows behind her so she could lean back without rubbing her shoulder blades raw.
The command tent radiated with bustling efficiency. The ECC folks were professionals moving with a purpose, wearing out the tent flaps with their comings and goings.
Kristanna monitored things, keeping contact with the assault team while noting signal strength and information as it flowed into their busy computers. She told Torri everything was being recorded and stored on hard drives, encrypted (whatever that was), and then sent up through their own little magic signals to a satellite flying in space above them.
Seemed pretty far fetched to Torri, but she supposed many doubted her own kind of magic. Who was she to disbelieve?
She had a job to do and she wanted to do it well. Honestly, it wasn’t that hard. Just sit and focus on the gate, on the vibrations humming from the Fade across the gate’s surface. Familiar patterns, like colors in her head. She kept the connection up, amplified it.
If she’d wanted to, she could have butted in and spoken directly to the folks over on the other side. Asked the truly important questions. Like, did they have any lakes or ponds or trees in Hell? Were there any insects? She supposed that if she really, really tried she could probably get into someone’s head over there and look herself, but she just didn’t have the energy. Nor did she want to screw up the signal.
Torri liked doing a good job. It made her proud.
Kristanna suddenly looked off to the side, cocking her head to listen to whatever was coming through.
Focusing on the signal more, Torri could hear it just like Kristanna could through her earpiece. It was like Torri had a speaker right in her head.
The line was filled with screams and shouts as the the ECC soldiers were attacked on the other side of the gate.
Torri swallowed. A sheen of sweat broke out across her brow. It sounded like chaos to her. But no, Bess’s sure voice cut through, guiding them, directing them to go up and along a ridge to avoid whatever in the hell had attacked them.
They were going to be okay. They had to be.
She exchanged a look with Kristanna. The woman’s face was horrified as she watched the large monitor, but then she got pensive, noticing Torri watching, and gave her a confident nod.
“You thinkin’ about going in after them?”
Kristanna’s head snapped around. “Not yet, no. I think they’ve got this.” But her eyes glanced at another set of monitors where Torri knew the life signs were all being watched. Three signals on the monitors had flatlined—Sawyer, Middleton, and Primrose were down, the computer blocks around their faces faded to a dim blue now.
The line went silent.
Kristanna raised a clenched fist, eyes pinned to the monitor and voice strained. “Base to M2. Do you read me M2? Bess, I can see you at the base of a rock, but can’t hear you if you’re speaking. Is that Outcrop #2? Can you confirm?”
There was a panicked moment when Torri thought they might be so far in above their heads that it would be just a matter of moments before Hell finished them off. She wanted to burst from the chair and go save them. At the same time wanted to dive into the raiding teams’ minds and see things through their eyes.
She wished Kristanna could turn the monitor around so she could see, but channeling the signal and watching it playback in real time could make a sort of echo in her head, like feedback.
“Yes,” came Bess’s tinny voice through the speakers. “We hear you now. M2 is intact. Regrouping at Outcrop #2 now.”
Kristanna covered the tiny microphone arm and released a long sigh, Then she put
her brave face back on. “Excellent, M2. Group status?”
“You can probably see, we’re down Sawyer, Middleton, and Primrose.”
One of the ECC operatives attending a computer terminal forgot herself, letting out a sob into her microphone.
“Mute that shit, Shia,” Kristanna barked.
The sobbing quickly stopped.
“Yes, I saw. Any other injuries?”
“Just a few scrapes and bumps. Nothing serious.”
“Good.”
Torri leaned forward out of the chair and instantly the connection crackled. “What was it got them?”
This time Kristanna tapped the mute button on her ear piece. “They were attacked by some kind of scarab people. Lonnie just tore one of them apart with his bare hands. It was as we suspected. His power is exponential in Hell. He has the ability to win this for us if…”
“If what?”
Kristanna’s eyes grew wet with reverent hope. “If he wants to.”
The ECC leader turned back to the monitor, pressing the mute button again. “Okay, M2. Can you see a way to proceed?”
“Stand by. We’re looking.”
Torri listened as Bess issued commands to her people, getting Tuck and Betty to scout the base of the rock, others to set watch for more dangers. Torri assumed they’d be climbing soon, investigating the structure at the top. The place where the Azarah’s tether signal was coming through loud and clear.
Torri eased back in her chair and tried to relax.
Someone cried out, and at first Torri thought it was someone on the M2 assault team. Then the shout came again, a little girl’s yelp, a girl dodging hands in a tag game with frightful urgency. And, no, it was close. Right outside the tent.
Commotion ensued. Torri’s eyes shot to the tent flap, and even Kristanna reeled and whipped her gun from its holster.
“Hey, little girl. Don’t…you can’t—”
