Neo stepped out of hiding as the gargoyles toted the corpses toward Lake Griffin. He cringed. The lifeless bodies would become sustenance for the lake’s Mortal Eclipse mutant population. He finally moved on. The mutants deserved a good meal now and then, too.
The front door reappeared and a distressed Crow rushed outside, glancing in every direction until it settled on Neo.
“Thank God you’re all right! Where’s Nick?” Crow asked, running up to his partner and giving him an affable whack on the back.
Neo described the deadly ambush and how Nick took a few slugs in the chest before falling backwards off the dock. That was the last Neo saw of him.
Crow stewed over Neo’s narrative. “What do you suppose happened to him? I can’t imagine bullets stopping Nick, considering his remarkable genes and everything.”
“I agree, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s missing.”
Crow stuffed both hands into his jeans pockets. “Should we search for him?”
“What we should do is wait. He’ll show up sooner or later, like always.”
“And what about Gabriella? Did you see her on the lake?”
Neo exhaled heavily. “It looks like she’s missing, too. Maybe he went to check on her.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Crow conceded, anxious to do anything to help Nick but wait. He was having a tough time swallowing the big man’s indifference.
Neo walked down the porch steps. “But feel free to hunt for them if you want. I’m not going to waste my time. Like I said, Nick always returns.”
“I’m going to get in touch with Geronimo before I decide anything. Since he’s linked to the local satellite and his drone’s video feeds, he might have spotted one or both of them somewhere around here,” Crow submitted.
“Why not? Geronimo is a great multitasker and eavesdropper,” Neo commented with a hint of sarcasm.
Crow disregarded the snide remark and bolted for the kitchen, where his laptop and Geronimo awaited him.
42
When the NSA agents sprung their trap at Gabriella’s dock, three bullets struck Nick’s chest, and their force knocked him off the dock into nippy Lake Griffin. The spring fed water numbed his bleeding wounds while his supernatural genes simultaneously initiated the healing process. By the time Nick struck the weedy bottom eight feet below, his unique system had finished ejecting the three slugs and scabbed over the entry fissures.
Nick’s dazed mind stalled his normal response—transforming him into his violent alter ego. During this semi-comatose state, a single word repeated like a badly scratched vinyl record.
Gabriella … Gabriella … Gabriella … Gabriella …
He couldn’t recall why her name monopolized his mind or why each time he pictured her, it felt like hundreds of scampering spiders crawling over his skin. He was distantly aware that two of his Mortal Eclipse brothers approached him, wrapped their slimy tentacles around his inert arms and legs, and dragged him out to the middle of the lake, where he could safely surface for air.
The shapeless creatures weren’t truly his brothers, according to the strict Webster’s Dictionary definition, because they were his father’s genetic failures that were born from different human mothers with varying grotesque physical mutations. They were the revolting results of Danforth’s early experiments that didn’t possess the super-soldier characteristics the military demanded. Because of their physical deficiencies, Danforth ordered his aides to dump them into the lake to drown, but they adapted and survived.
Although their appearances were repulsive, they had loyal and empathetic natures. They would willingly sacrifice their lives to protect Nick, Neo, Crow, or Gabriella. They considered these people family. Years ago, when Nick was an FBI Orion Sector agent, the lake creatures referred to him as the Chosen One because he was the only one who could end his father and brother’s brutality. After Nick slayed those blood relatives, the Lake Griffin mutants swore allegiance to him for life.
The two eight foot, jellyfish-like bodies floated to the surface so Nick could breathe. Their hairless eyebrows sank across their clear bony foreheads, while their wide mouths scowled at the ongoing distant gunfire pinning Neo down in the boat.
After Nick’s breathing went from gulping air to taking slower breaths, his foggy mind cleared. Gabriella.
These mutants were mind readers.
“Gabriella has been taken prisoner and is being held in our father’s subterranean castle,” one of the mutants explained via mental telepathy. They were unable to physically speak because of their misshapen mouths without lips and muscles.
“Take me to her now!” Nick exclaimed.
His brothers gently submerged him again and swam to the island with incredible speed. They beached Nick on the gravelly shoreline on the island side hidden from Duneden. Before abandoning the Chosen One, one of the mutants gave him a grim warning.
“The person imprisoning Gabriella is a powerful witch. Approach her with caution! We sense she might be more powerful than you, Nick.”
43
Nick slogged out of the lake in his dripping clothes and headed for the hidden tunnel that led to his father’s underground world. He was still amazed the bullet wounds hadn’t triggered his transformation. He was both pleased and perplexed by the enigma. What happened to him back on the dock? Did he lose his supernatural abilities once he fell into the lake? Nick tried to shake off his uncharacteristic anxiety, but it was futile. What was wrong with him?
His head jerked up at the sudden cessation of gunfire. Hopefully, the gargoyles rescued Neo before he died. His intuition told him Neo was perfectly all right, but a couple of Foster’s renegades were about to ambush him. The agents were nothing the big man couldn’t handle.
Nick chucked off his soggy shoes, threw off the rotting timbers concealing the well, and climbed down the rusted iron rungs to the tunnel. The air was thick with mold and dankness, which chilled Nick’s wet skin. He didn’t need a flashlight to guide his way—he knew the route by heart.
He raced along the tunnel barefoot until he reached the island’s vast underground grotto. He conjured a pair of shoes as he studied the murky outline of his late father’s immense castle. The macabre pale glow from thousands of diamond-like particles wedged in the cavern’s ceiling illuminated the grotto and its eerie Gothic contours.
Nick crossed the grotto to the lowered drawbridge and raised his foot to step onto it when dozens of torches sprang to life around the inner courtyard. Soaring, hissing flames dispelled the darkness and cast cavorting apparitions on the ebony stone walls. Nick jumped at the unexpected activity. When his nerves calmed, Nick backed away from the drawbridge and looked inside the courtyard for Gabriella or her witch captor, but the area remained empty. He remembered his mutant brother’s warning.
“The person imprisoning Gabriella is a powerful witch. Approach her with caution! We sense she might be more powerful than you, Nick.”
Where was Gabriella?
The unoccupied castle was built into the western grotto wall. The structure was a nightmare that created a sinister pall with its lofty battlements, arched windows openings, massive stonework, and pitch black wooden drawbridge. He hated his birthplace.
He tried to gather enough courage to cross the ice slick planks over the ominous moat waters, but his determination withered at the sight of a very familiar silhouette in the center of the courtyard. The stone and marble mythical beast statue with a terrifying horned goat head and a fiery gaze stared at the drawbridge to discourage trespassers. The sinister creation was glistening black and human from the neck down. Its left hand clutched a curved jeweled scimitar over a rectangular stone sacrificial table. Thick leather straps were used to hold the human sacrifice, and the person’s blood was channeled along two deep grooves running the length of the table into a pair of bloodstained urns. Grotesque demons in grotesque poses decorated these receptacles.
Nick’s pulse and breathing quickened as he tiptoed across the drawbrid
ge. Where was the witch keeping Gabriella? Fear-soured perspiration oozed from his pores. Had Gabriella’s captor murdered her, and now waited to waylay him? He buried that notion. Gabriella was too insightful, too powerful, and too clever to be overpowered like she had been in the library.
He scanned the dancing courtyard shapes, but none of them was the witch or Gabriella. Ghosts seemingly returned his gaze from the illuminated courtyard windows, but it was just his imagination playing tricks on him. The drawbridge creaked behind him as he stepped off, and its heavy chains mysteriously drew it up toward the raised iron portcullis.
Nick hurriedly pictured an open drawbridge in his mind, but the mental image didn’t halt its ascent. He blinked several times. Where were his magic powers? It appeared they had deserted him.
He swallowed hard as a dark, hooded figure clutching a shepherd’s staff moved mouse-quiet from a dusky archway and pointed the crook at him.
“Hello, Nick. Is your magic on the fritz?” Her hollow cackle echoed through the castle.
“Who are you?” Nick asked, suddenly feeling naked without his magic. Normally, he would be more than glad to forgo the magic stuff for a good old-fashioned gunfight, but this wasn’t going to be a gunfight. Unless…
He slowly shifted his hand to his holstered gun. If push came to shove, he could always shoot the damn witch. Maybe.
“All in good time, Nick. All in good time.”
“What do you want?”
She cackled again. “Why, I want you and Gabriella dead, of course. That’s why I cast an aura around this island that neutralizes any necromancer’s powers but mine. So you see, you and your girlfriend are defenseless and can’t do anything in this castle but die.”
44
The alarm inside the Chrysalis International Corporation’s Kauai Genetic Bio-Engineering Lab clanged and the lights flickered, obliging Dr. Tom Wilton to abandon his lab experiment, strip off his Hazmat suit, and check his computer for the breached security zone. It was E.V.A.N.’S holding cell! He was totally puzzled.
Had the monster escaped from its newly fortified enclosure?
Wilton pushed his black rimmed glasses higher on his nose and jogged through the maze of intersecting hallways toward E.V.A.N.’S section. Upon entering the breached zone, he stopped dead in his tracks. The sterile white walls were fouled with fresh splattered blood from the dozen or so white-coated scientists lying dead on the floor.
His first thought was to text the lab’s security corporation, but then he reasoned retreating up top might be the most practical idea. Survive! But his curiosity didn’t cooperate; it kept his feet nailed to the floor. He couldn’t leave without finding out who or what had triggered the alarm and slaughtered his co-workers. The killer definitely wasn’t E.V.A.N. The otherworldly monster would have eaten their remains.
He loosened his tie, unbuttoned his shirt’s top button, and advanced down the hall, avoiding his fallen comrades like he was playing a gruesome game of hopscotch. Their necks were open slits. He swallowed back charging vomit; this was a bad time to be sick. He needed his faculties functioning at their highest level.
The door to E.V.A.N.’s area was partially open, so after locating the only available weapon near the entrance, a clothes tree, Wilton warily shoved the door inward until the handle bumped the wall.
Wilton couldn’t believe his eyes. He dropped the metal clothes tree, which clanked harmlessly on the floor. Four seven-foot midnight purple bipeds strained to pull open E.V.A.N.’s new armored door. The creatures pivoted on their backward kneed, spindly legs at the sudden noise and stared at Wilton. He automatically corrected himself. While their knees appeared backward, the scientific description was backward ankles.
The reptilian skull’s complexion was pitted like the moon’s surface, and the shiny, hairless purple flesh hugged the irregular dunes and craters. Always the scientist, Wilton was amazed at their bulbous amber eyes, twin nostril lumps, wide distended mouths, two tall twisted horns rising from their skulls’ crowns, and the brief spiked ears. The four digits on each hand were exceedingly long and ended with curled claws, and the eight toeless feet were rigid cloven hoofs. In Wilton’s mind, they were daunting supernatural demons … or perhaps ghastly aliens from another world.
One of them bounded the short distance across the room to Wilton, seized his right arm, and half-tugged and lifted him effortlessly to E.V.A.N.’s cell door. The scientist knew better than to resist. The creature lowered its drooling mouth close to Wilton’s ear. It’s top and bottom lips were far apart, but it somehow cracked its jaws, which brought the lips closer together. They now loosely resembled human lips.
“Open door or die,” the monster threatened him, forming the words perfectly.
Wilton was more intrigued by his captor’s ability to reconfigure its facial features than he was with listening to its verbal demand. Its nails burrowed into his flesh, and a warm liquid trickled down his arm.
“Open door or die!” his captor repeated fiercely.
Dr. Robert Wilton shook off the tight grip, inspected the bleeding punctures, and then stepped up to the keypad beside E.V.A.N.’s door. He proceeded to type in the security code and let the device scan his thumb print. After recognizing the doctor, there were a number of loud clicks and whirrs before the door swung partially out on its heavy hinges.
One of the four creatures yanked the door back with surprising ease, revealing a red lighted area inside.
A vociferous roar shook the entire area, nearly knocking Wilton and his strange companions to the floor. The scientist stepped back as the door opener ventured inside to collect the monster. The room trembled again from another roar, and the brave creature flew out of the enclosure, collided with Wilton, and sent them both crashing against the far wall. The scientists pushed the inert alien off him and attempted to stand, but he was too groggy to keep his balance.
The familiar four-legged brute filled the open doorway. E.V.A.N.! The creature evaluated its enemies in the bright outer room with its four red globular eyes. Wilton was astonished. Its mass had ballooned since yesterday, and the scientist seriously doubted whether the enormous monster could pass through the cell opening now.
One of the three remaining creatures dropped its duffel bag, dipped its clawed hand inside, and withdrew a sizeable syringe filled with a lime green fluid. It exchanged alien conversation with its two companions, and after they nodded, the purple creature leaped in front of E.V.A.N. and buried the syringe in one of its hostile eyes.
The monster reared up on its thick hind legs, caught the alien in its massive maw, and snapped its jaws shut. The victim’s scream was fleeting as E.V.A.N. chewed the slender body twice before swallowing it. The beast thrashed around its cell, bashing its face into the steel walls until the syringe came loose and fell to the floor. The angry monster stomped the syringe, but the damage was done. The green fluid was already coursing through its body, devouring its excess mass, and transfiguring its genetic code.
By the time the room ceased spinning in Wilton’s mind, his glazed eyes landed on the transformed E.V.A.N. The alien was now the size of a large pony. Its face had been completely refigured, too. The extra eyes and flapping ears were nonexistent, and its prominent rainbow colored snout was divided into a flat pair of blue craters above its broad, toothy mouth extending from ear to ear. One of the surviving aliens reached into the dead one’s duffel bag and withdrew a glittering metallic bridal. It affixed the device to the smaller and more docile E.V.A.N., led it out of its cell, and guided it past the scientist and out the door.
Wilton scrambled into the hallway, found his abandoned computer notepad, and punched in the security alarm code. The earsplitting siren pulsated once more, but when no security guards responded this time either, he knew they were all dead.
Wilton was about to return to his office when E.V.A.N. reappeared around the corner and attacked the shocked scientist. There was nowhere for the scientist to run for shelter … except E.V.A.N.’s enclosure.
>
He sprinted for the fortified area, but he never made it. E.V.A.N. was too fast. Its small talons shredded Wilton’s skin and clawed his bones to calcified noodles. It finally deserted the bloody pile of strips and rejoined its new masters. Without eating the scientist.
Seconds later, the Kauai Genetic Lab exploded into flesh devouring purple flames and completely destroyed all the top secret military bio-engineering projects.
E.V.A.N. had been hijacked again.
45
Nick was defenseless.
Without his supernatural magic powers, he couldn’t activate his psychic virtual search or supernatural sonar to locate Gabriella. Perhaps it was just as well. If he located Gabriella, the witch might also be alerted to her hiding spot, and she would die, too. At least this way, Gabriella had a fighting chance to escape the grotto and avenge his murder.
“Goodbye, Nick,” she declared with finality. The sorceress cackled as she launched a crackling yellow energy burst at him from the tip of her staff.
Nick guessed that would be her weapon of choice, but he was too slow on the draw. The gun barely cleared its holster when the crackling beam struck him and produced instant paralysis. His petrified body flew backward and struck a stone rampart. The crisp snap of his ribcage echoed throughout the hushed castle, and his head slumped sideways against the abrasive wall.
Rage gradually displaced the faraway pain in his ribs and head, but his physical transformation into his radical orange-red alter ego was stalled. It seemed his motivation, anger, had lost its edge and effectiveness. His ire was oddly entombed inside an emotional bubble, rendering it inoperable. Was the witch’s aura that strong? It looked like it. Her spell downgraded him to an ordinary human with no supernatural abilities, which meant her next energy bolt would kill him.
Final Scream Page 19
