The crimson shadow loses patience: a broad beam of solid light smacks the green man from the sky, leaving it limp on the ground beside Mark.
Mark struggles to his feet, nursing the pain in his side, and leaps again with a snarl on his face. This time he is ready – when the shade grabs him by the arms, he plants his forehead into its face and sends it reeling back.
He drops – unable to fly after all – and grabs onto the shade's foot as he falls, dragging it down with him.
The green Protector leaps past him and punches a crackling, electric fist into the figure's jaw before grabbing it by the head and forcing it towards the ground with Mark.
The three figures, tangled together, drop like a dead bird before smashing into the bottom of the red orb and untying themselves from one another.
Mark gets to his feet, ready for another bout, when the ground vanishes from beneath him and he falls through the shield, tumbling into the empty camp with a cry of surprise.
He lands with a crash, concrete disintegrating around him.
He looks up from his crater; the orb has already sealed over, trapping the Protector in there with the Destroyer, alone. Inside, he can see crackling lightning and flame, like a volcanic storm.
“No,” he whispers. “No, no -”
He jumps to his feet and leaps upwards, crashing his fists against the forcefield. It barely bends under his assault, and without flight he is left clawing at the air as he falls back to the earth in the arms of gravity, cursing and swearing.
Inside, the Protector is lying at the base of the orb, helpless under the relentless assault of the demonic red man hovering above it.
The iris opens, even as the missiles and large-calibre rounds dash themselves in vain against the outer layers, and the Protector falls out, fading at the edges like mist. It lands without a sound next to Mark, and he kneels beside it, watching it evaporate like the steam off a winter lake.
“Not -” it says, its bass-voice booming in Mark's heart. It stutters like a broken machine – and Mark realises that that is exactly what it is; a machine. “Not strong enough. Failed.”
Mark looks up to see the open iris, and the red figure hovering within it. It casts its arms out like a wizard and lightning, heat, sound, force and energy rain down upon the green man in a torrent of pain. He throws himself away from the beam.
The Protector lets out a scream that, whilst deep and alien, is all too human. Mark feels it deep within his bones: the death-cry of the being that gave him his power. The force of the blast throws him backwards into a mess of tents and crates, and by the time Mark emerges, cursing and shouting, it is over.
There is a faint silhouette lying on the ground, surrounded by burnt, scorched earth, in a crater that is to become its grave. It manages to glance at Mark, reaching for him, before the wind blows it away like dust.
Then the Protector is gone.
Mark glares upwards and finds the iris still open. It seems as though the entire sky is a red boiling sea hanging over his head, with the red man at its centre.
Mark leaps, fist cocked back, and the crimson shade hits him with the same force, blasting him back down into the very same crater where he watched his sculptor die only seconds ago. Mark twists and writhes in agony in the ground, pinned there by the sheer force of the assault, like an ocean current dragging him under.
He can feel it eating away at his skin, burning away his protection as the fire inside him rages, trying to repair the damage.
Jamie follows the Trespasser through the rubble, cursing at the heat as they navigate over long trenches burnt into the earth, as though by the sword of some great demon. The others follow behind him, all of them shying away from the huge red orb giving out a vile, poisonous bass note.
They are led through the burning ruins of a bar, some of the broken tables still aflame from the heat that tore through it.
“We're heading for a convoy that was evacuating civilians,” says the Trespasser as they move through the smoky darkness in the midst of the red night. “They reported contact with humanoid forces that were, to quote Command, leaping off the bloody rooftops.”
“Oh hell,” says Gary, loud enough for them all to hear it.
“Stay close, let me do the shooting – and if you have to, defend yourselves and each other.”
They come out of the pub and cross the street to where rows of individual trees once stood, lining the boulevard intersecting Buchanan Street. The trees are charred husks now, burned away by the heat and the flame.
Missiles streak over their heads from halfway across the city, explosions rippling against the red forcefield. Miles higher, mere sounds in the sky, flies another fleet of bombers. Trespasser One gets the word in his comms; another batch of fuel air bombs, timed with a high-volume missile strike to take advantage of their effectiveness.
He nods to the squad, who have stopped with him. “Another bombing run – let's get moving.”
They head towards the gunfire this time, the rattle of assault rifles in the distance. Something screams, an animalistic cry that couldn't have come from a human.
“What was that?” asks Gary. “A tiger or something?”
“Focus, Gary,” says the Trespasser.
Just then, running into their line of sight up Buchanan Street, come a squad of soldiers, six of them. One of them stops in the middle of the road, waving his men across it, before stopping and turning back down the street and firing a short burst from his rifle. It clicks empty, and he drops it, pulling a service pistol from his belt and emptying the magazine.
They watch in horror as the thing he was shooting at barrels into him at chest height, and a shower of blood erupts from the screaming figure. His squad have stopped now too, turning back to see their officer torn apart.
At a screamed order they drop to their knees and open fire: a hail of lead tears the creature apart, leaving it scattered across the ground.
“Men,” shouts the Trespasser, leading his squad towards the crouched soldiers. He waves, and they look up. “Trespasser One, Special Forces. You the evac squad that put out the distress call?”
They look around at a bloody-faced man who stands up, checking that they're alone, before he nods.
“We are. Staff Sergeant Ferguson. You're the help? I don't see any rifles.”
Something explodes down the street behind them and they all flinch. The Trespasser changes the subject. “Where's the rest of your unit?”
“This is it,” he shakes his head. “We had a few trucks and an APC – all gone. That – whatever it was – attacked us. Then some guy dropped off a roof and ripped an armoured vehicle apart with his hands. Laugh if you want: I don't give a shit anymore. These things shrug at bullets, this is no place for infantry.” They look up at the sound of a helicopter passing overhead, and watch an attack chopper skim above the rooftops, unleashing a salvo of missiles with a hiss. The sergeant looks at the Trespasser. “I don't suppose you know what's going on here, do you?”
The Trespasser shakes his head, just as Jamie appears beside him and points down the street.
“I see something.”
They all turn, and the Staff Sergeant readies his rifle as they do. Right enough, two human figures are walking towards them through the red-tinged smoke.
“Sergeant, get your men out of here,” says the Trespasser, pointing to the shattered glass of the Buchanan Street subway stairs, leading down into the murky darkness. “Take them through the subway tunnels – there's an evac point at the St Enoch's car park.” The officer almost hesitates, looking at his men, and the rifles in their hands. The Trespasser stops him before he can protest. “Just go, son. You said this was no place for infantry and you were right. This isn't your fight.”
He pats the soldier on the back and the soldier nods, leading his squad down the stairs and off the streets.
The two figures pacing towards them down the road are shadows in the dust, dark shapes cut out of the air. Only when they come through the smoke
does the flickering light of the burning city illuminate them.
“I don't know if I can do this,” mumbles Donald, hiding behind the Trespasser, who draws his hand-held grenade launcher and takes aim.
They see a man and a woman, walking side by side towards them with single purpose. There seems to be nothing unusual about them.
“The first violent move they make,” the Trespasser says, “take them down.”
“How?” asks Stacy. “I can't manipulate people.”
“Think of something.”
That's when the woman tenses her legs and leaps into the air, descending upon them like a screaming harpy, her limbs splayed out like claws.
Behind them, the second torrent of thermobaric bombs go off, and the sky is lit with a flock of missiles streaking in from across the city. The leaping woman is silhouetted by the sparkling lights of airborne rockets behind her, and lit from the front by the blooming light of the explosion.
Time stops.
For Jamie, in the grey moment that he has frozen himself in, it's almost beautiful. Then, with a sigh, he takes the grenade launcher from the Trespasser's hand and aims it up at the woman.
“I'm sorry,” he whispers, and then takes a deep breath and lets time snap back.
The woman is blown out of the sky in a puff of red mist; and before the squad are showered in a rain of body-parts and gore, Gary throws up a forcefield.
It is just as well that he did – for the other man is suddenly on the other side of it, his tracksuit torn and bloodied, and he is screaming and cursing at them, pounding on the blue bubble. He sneers, then steps back and throws his hands up like a magician.
Fire begins to course around his fingers before blooming like a flame-thrower, coating the bubble in dancing orange flame. Gary, his hands out like a mime forming an invisible wall, drops to his knees.
“Stop him,” he cries out. “I can't keep this up.”
The Trespasser takes the pistol from his belt and aims it at the man's chest, ready for the when the forcefield goes down.
“Stop, or I will kill you,” the Trespasser states. The man doesn't hear – he is drunk on his own power, pushing more flames from the shimmering air around his hands. “Stop now,” the Trespasser shouts, motioning with the pistol.
“I'm losing it -” Gary groans, wincing.
“Donald, be ready to heal us,” says the Trespasser.
“No need,” says Donald, and steps up close to the barrier as it begins to flicker. He can feel the heat on the other side of it, seeping through.
He raises his hand as though is telling the man to stop, and reaches out with his mind. His conscience drifts through the man's body until he feels the fire, feels the heat at his core – it's different from the heat that he feels in his friends when he heals them. Theirs is a warm heat, a welcoming heat: the roaring log fire on a cold winter day, the burning sensation that a rousing speech gives you, the swell of an orchestra.
This – the fire that he feels in this man – is a cancer. A sickness feeding on the host at the expense of their soul, shovelling their memories and happiness like fuel into a burning furnace in the pit of their heart.
Donald reaches into that black, corrupted heart with his mind – a mind made for healing – and grips the man's heart, stopping it.
The flames fade as suddenly as they came, and the man drops to the ground. His eyes glass over as Gary lets the forcefield down.
“Oh christ,” whispers Donald. “What have I done?”
“Did you do that?” asks the Trespasser, taking his grenade launcher back from Jamie and reloading it.
Donald nods.
“You saved us,” says Jamie, patting him on the back. Donald doesn't react.
Stacy looks back towards the square. “Did the missile strike work?”
They see the huge red orb still hovering above the city, lashings of flame cutting the buildings down around it. More flames leap from the inside of the orb, arcing out over the city to create more monsters.
The Trespasser wipes his visor clean. “No. Shit.”
The explosions rock the crimson shade suddenly enough that it loses focus, and Mark's twisted, burned figure is given enough time to gasp for air and roll away.
Every patch of his skin has been scorched off, leaving red, weeping flesh beneath it. His eyes have been burned out – he is blind, his vision a constant rippling white. He looks like a walking corpse, a red mannequin.
The deep bass note trembles as the bombs and missiles rock the Destroyer, cracking open its shield. While it is distracted, Mark – wheezing for air and limping – heads towards the breeze. Even as the pressure wave pushes him to the ground again, he clings to life.
The blast passes like a nightmare, leaving his skin dry and covered in thousands of tiny cuts from the debris. The fire within him is fading, weakening with every step.
He tenses his legs and gives it one last go: he leaps into the night air, away from the Destroyer, his heart crushed and his body broken. Mark is in the air for longer than he can count. The missiles go off, and he feels the flame and the heat, the detonation propelling him further, higher.
Only by the sensation in his stomach can he tell that he is falling. The ground meets him like an old friend and he feels the breath driven from him as though he has been hit by a train.
He can't move, struggling to roll onto his back. Mark stares into that same burning whiteness, his sight gone. He weeps, but his tear ducts have been scorched out. His strength has left him – he lies alone on a street that he cannot see, in a city that he keeps trying to give his life for.
With the last of his energy, he opens his dry, burned mouth in desperation and tries to call out the name of his friend.
“Mark?” shouts Jamie, hearing his name croaked somewhere in the darkness.
“Was that who fell? I thought it was another of those psychos.”
“Oh god,” says Jamie, waving through the smoke and seeing the charred husk of his friend on the ground. “Oh god, Mark.”
He rushes into the crater, kneeling beside him.
“J-Jamie?” rasps the skeletal form on the ground. He is unrecognisable – his skin has been flayed from his body, his naked form torn apart by the Destroyer.
“Mark. Oh god,” whispers Jamie. He reaches down and lays a hand on his friend's chest. “It's ok man. I'm here. We're all here.”
“He's dead,” rasps Mark. “Protector. Dead. Destroyer won.”
Jamie looks up at Donald as he kneels down and puts a hand on Mark.
Jamie asks him with his eyes: Can you do anything?
Donald lifts his face mask and looks up at him, and Jamie feels the Trespasser's hand on his shoulder. Tearing his face-mask off, Jamie tosses it aside and wipes his eyes.
“There has to be something we can do,” he whispers.
Mark's blackened hand tightens around Jamie's, and he looks at him with eyes that are fused shut, his hair burnt away.
“Not strong enough,” whispers Mark. “I'm sorry.”
“Mark, hold on,” he squeezes his hand. “Donald can fix you up, we can get you back up -”
Donald is shaking his head, and the Trespasser squeezes Jamie's shoulder. Behind them, Stacy chokes back a sob.
“Ah shit,” whispers Cathy, taking Stacy in her arms.
“No,” says Jamie. He lets go of Mark's hand and stands up. “You're not dying like this.”
“Jamie, please,” says Donald.
“We can't just give in, Don,” says Jamie, laying Mark's hand on his own burnt chest, which is still rising and falling with each defiant breath. He leans in close to Mark. “You can't just give in.”
The Trespasser gives them a solemn look as he pulls off his mask. “The alien is gone. Mark is... Well, it may be time to pull out, and consider a nuclear strike.”
All around them, a sudden grinding bass note erupts. Across the city, any lights that were on suddenly flicker and go off. The red darkness is complete; missiles in flight stutt
er and fall from the sky. The sound of gunfire falters, and the helicopters circling the city plummet from the sky.
“Oh no,” says the Trespasser. “No, no -”
“An EMP?” asks Donald, looking up at the dark city.
Trespasser One tries his comms. “Command? Command, come in.”
Nothing.
“What? What's happened?”
The only light now is the Destroyer, rising above the city. It lifts itself into the sky, a pulsing red orb like a portal to hell, growing in size.
They feel the trembling of its roar before they hear it, a buzzing so low it feels as though something is punching their insides. The world begins to heat up, and they all gasp as they feel the burning on their skin.
“It's knocked out our electricity. We have no heavy fire-power,” says the Trespasser, scratching at his sun-burnt flesh. “I don't even have comms.”
“What does that mean?” asks Cathy. “What's our next step?”
“There isn't one,” the Trespasser says, his shoulders going limp. “We can't nuke it if it can just switch the power off. Depending how far this power-cut has gone, we can't even launch a single missile. It's over.”
“No it isn't,” says Jamie. “Not yet. There must be something else we can do.”
“Even if there was, the Destroyer is going to burn Glasgow to the ground,” says Gary, dropping his mask. “You can feel it heating up. Then there's god-knows-how-many super-powered psychos out there. We're out of time.”
“Not yet,” whispers Jamie.
He flexes the muscle in his mind, and time judders to a halt. The colour – the burning redness in everything – fades, leaving only the grey chill of that dark moment.
Looking down at his dying friend, he wipes a stubborn tear from his eye, and turns and runs through the frozen second.
Jamie spares a glance back at the Destroyer, caught in the moment as it lashes out again, a whip of fire cutting through a strike helicopter as it falls in mid-air.
Jamie sprints through time, heading for a burning convenience store across the road, hoping with all of his heart that they stock whiskey.
Kingdom: The Complete Series Page 32
