“I can try,” she nods, “tell me when -”
“Now,” shouts the Trespasser.
Cathy's face screws up as a roaring mist encapsulates the helicopter. Flame and thunder crackle towards them – then the heat is gone, and the fog bathes them in the damp mist. Cathy relaxes her power, and the mist is blown away by the helicopter's blades.
“We can't keep this up,” says the Trespasser, turning to Mark. “We're over it – you ready?”
“Ready as I'll ever be,” says Mark, shaking the nervous jittering out of his muscles.
He steps up to the helicopter's edge like a diver to the board, springing up and down on his toes. Unscrewing the bottle that Jamie saved him, he downs the last drink he may ever have, and closes his eyes in contentment as the world makes itself right for a moment.
“Are you sure you can hit it? We're quite high, it's not a huge target.”
Mark looks out, holding onto the edges of the door, and sees the dead, silent city beneath him. In the centre, like a light shining through the smoke and the ash coasting over Glasgow, Mark sees the pinpoint of red light.
“We're really high up,” he mumbles, light headed as the drink kicks in.
“Mark, can you hit it?”
“Yeah.” He turns around and gives them a peaceful, contented smile as he tosses the empty whiskey bottle over the edge. “Like I said. Any idiot can fall, right?”
Mark closes his eyes, lets go, and plummets out of the helicopter.
He feels the wind pulling at his hair and his shorts, buffeting his body as he drops like a stone. Mark's arms are out at his side as though he is being crucified, and he finally opens his eyes and looks ahead at the ground racing towards him.
In the centre is the Destroyer, burning bright in the darkness, and Mark speeds towards it.
Every second brings him closer, and faster. He feels the air streaking around him, slowing him down now.
Gritting his teeth, his stomach flipping over inside, he clenches a fist and extends it in front of his face.
Too slow, still.
He streaks through the sky like a missile, both fists in front of his face as the red orb of the Destroyer screams towards him.
Everything is silent for Mark.
There is only the forcefield: that oily red bubble burning his city, his world, to a cinder.
He starts to will himself faster, and the air forms a cone of vapour in front of him as he approaches the speed of sound.
For a second, all of his strength is focused on two tiny points at the tips of his knuckles.
Mark screams, and punctures the shield like a bullet zipping through flesh.
From the helicopter, the Trespasser watches Mark's figure vanish into the darkness.
Moments later, there is a deafening crash, and a bass note cuts through the chaos like a knife.
Eyes wide, the Trespasser watches the red orb tremble and shatter like glass, bursting into flame and light and dissipating on the wind.
“He bloody did it,” he says. “Stacy, decrease power to the main rotors. We need to get lower down.”
“Trespasser,” she grits her teeth, “something is happening.”
“What?” he begins, trying to see through the confusion in her eyes. “What's happening?”
“Uh, Trespasser...” says Jamie, pointing out into the darkness.
Across Glasgow, lights have started to come on, flickering to life in the distant shadow.
“Oh shit,” whispers the Trespasser.
He checks his watch, and sees the second hand struggle to life and move across the face again. Standing up, the Trespasser rushes for the helicopter's cockpit and throws himself into a seat as the controls begin to light up again.
“It's moving on its own,” shouts Stacy. “It's like I'm fighting against it.”
“Don't fight it, Stace,” the Trespasser shouts. “I've got the wheel now, you can stop.”
She lets go, and without a sound collapses into Donald's arms, her eyes rolling into the back of her head.
The helicopter plummets, and Jamie grabs onto Gary's collar to stop him flying out of the open doors as the craft spins, throwing them all against the walls.
“Hold on,” the Trespasser screams. He pulls back on the controls, fighting the spin.
With the air outside rushing past them, the chopper finally stabilises and the Trespasser starts to power down and bring them closer to the ground.
“Command, Command, come in. This is Trespasser One,” he shouts into his comms unit. “Do you copy?”
“We copy, Trespasser,” says Command, his voice shaking – something the Trespasser has never heard before. “What the hell is happening down there, we lost power to everything -”
“Listen, Command, listen to me,” he shouts his officer down, taking a breath to calm down. “You need to alert everyone that's listening: don't drop a nuke. We've got this, we can contain it with minimal loss of life.”
“Minimal? Son, we've lost contact with almost every unit in the city centre, loss of life is no longer a concern -”
“Sir, trust me on this,” he says, bringing the chopper down among the still-standing buildings of the city centre. “You need to target George's Square with all the ordinance you have. Missiles, bombs, whatever – but it needs to be simultaneous. Do it now, before that thing can switch off the power again. You might not have long, do you understand?”
“Are you giving me orders now, Trespasser?”
“Now is not the bloody time for this, Command! Get your shit together and fire the ordinance, do you understand?”
There is silence on the comms.
“Loud and clear, Trespasser One.”
“Good, now I'm going to get my squad to safety.”
“Trespasser.” Jamie appears at the cockpit's edge and leans in, looking at the Trespasser's rigid expression. “Mark is still down there, you'll hit him with that stuff too.”
“Jamie,” he looks up at his squad member. “We won't get another chance like this. Mark's tough, and he's smart – but we can't put all of our eggs in one basket, you understand?”
Jamie shakes his head and leaves the Trespasser to pilot the helicopter as they descend upon a building not far out from George's Square, the bright-lit sign of Glasgow's towering cinema flickering back to life and beckoning them down.
Mark kneels up from the dust in the crater, the red shadow burning beneath him on the ground. Fists clenched, teeth grinding together, Mark shouts mindless abuse at it and punches it in its fiery crimson head again and again.
Every blow slams it back against the ground as it tries to rise against him, raising its faintly human hands in confusion, trying to ward off his blows.
Mark bats away a flailing strike from its blood-coloured arm, and smashes a fist straight through its face. Pieces of the Destroyer break off and dissipate like smoke before it reform itself.
A trembling bass note builds as the two super-powered beings battle in the crater that was once George's square. Masonry and flaming debris fall around them, the rains cast by Mark's earth-shattering impact.
Again and again Mark roars and punches it as the bass note grows louder and stronger, juddering his bones and shaking his mind till he can hardly see.
He takes his hands away for a moment to rub the strain from his eyes; that is when the Destroyer strikes back.
From its skull comes a torrent of energy, blasting into Mark's sternum and propelling him up into the air like an acrobat. He flips over, struggling to regain control.
In the air, Mark is a sitting duck – and easy target for the Destroyer. It stands up and extends its arm, blasting Mark into a pile of rubble and fire with beams of crackling energy. Mark screams, feeling the same pain that he felt not so long ago, the sensation of his skin bubbling and boiling.
The Destroyer ascends, hovering in the air over Mark, pouring pain and anger down upon him. Mark hears nothing but the bass-scream of his death, writhing, helpless beneath the Destroyer'
s assault again.
He almost lies back.
Mark almost lets his arms down and welcomes death like an old friend. So many times has he faced death recently, so many times has he suffered through the pain and fear and come so close.
And so many times has he endured.
Mark's scream of agony twists and turns into a roar of anger, a booming, raging protest. He raises his hand as though he is shielding himself from the sun, and plants one hand on the scorching rubble beneath the beam.
Pounding energy burns at his skin, but the fire inside him burns stronger, repairing the damage, strengthening his muscles, his mind. Grunting with effort, Mark rises to his knees.
The Destroyer pours yet more power onto him, torrents of it cascading over him, breaking like water on rock.
Mark closes his eyes, focusing everything into his legs.
Pushing Mark down with all of its power, the Destroyer can do nothing but watch as Mark stands up, cocks his arm back, and leaps up the beam like a bullet down a barrel.
Mark smashes into the Destroyer like an avenging angel, hitting its head with a flying uppercut that shears torrents of wispy red smoke from its body.
A low bass scream cuts through Glasgow as the Destroyer is sent spiralling up into the air, and Mark follows it on the impulse of his leap. Just as he starts to slow, at the apex of his jump, he reaches out and grabs the Destroyer by the leg.
Letting out a roar of primal anger, Mark swings the Destroyer like a hammer and slings it down into the crater. It tumbles and falls like an aircraft without power, thudding into the ground.
Mark falls after it, descending upon it like an eagle upon its prey, his fist cocked back as he plunges to the earth.
He lands on the Destroyer's prone form fist-first, and it tries to slap him away with an intense, focused energy beam. Mark puts a hand out and stops the beam before it can leave the Destroyer's body, and punches it hard in the head with his free hand.
Again and again he rains blows upon the monster, until silence falls across Glasgow.
The Destroyer has stopped fighting back. He looks at it, waiting for it to turn to smoke and drift away like the Protector did before.
It just looks at him, that same bass note turning his stomach sour, shaking his lungs and turning his vision to a blurred smear.
It's screaming, he realises. That low, constant bass note.
It's screaming for help.
Mark looks up, and around, and sees why it has stopped fighting.
Across what remains of Glasgow's buildings, circling the George's Square crater like broken fortress walls, are silhouettes. Upon each building stands a legion of demons, monsters and psychopaths, creatures pulled from the darkest corners of the human mind, brought home to their master by its ringing call.
As one, moving together, the beasts begin to drop from the buildings, some carried by their stronger allies, and pace towards Mark in a tightening circle, drawing in like a noose.
Whichever way he looks are shadows, silhouettes in the darkness.
Something comes from the Destroyer, a sound: it is the noise that cancer would make if it could speak – and it is laughing; a sickly, joyous laugh.
Mark turns to silence it with a punch and the Destroyer hits Mark with another crackling beam of light. Wincing, Mark dodges to one side and battles with the Destroyer, punching and kicking as the red beast rises to its feet and extends its limbs, growing in size till it towers above Mark, at least nine feet tall.
It wraps its arms around Mark and squeezes him, crushing the air from him.
The Destroyer's soldiers begin to arrive, screaming and whooping in victory. Mark's eyes are wide with fear – he can't fight an army, not with the Destroyer holding him down.
Then Mark looks up, and sees the sky on fire.
Tiny points of light are growing as they approach, like a legion of stars falling from the heavens. Mark wonders for a second if the Protector has returned from death to help him.
But this is not the work of the alien – the Protector is gone. These are the weapons of a frightened humanity, blotting out the sky with their anger.
Mark sees the missiles racing towards him, towards the city. The Destroyer and its minions, hundreds of them surrounding him now, seem clueless to the imminent destruction. Struggling, Mark fights against the Destroyer's grip. He looks into the hungry eyes of twisted, rotten humans that have no soul left.
Lost people, he thinks, devoured by the Destroyer – devoured by themselves.
With a desperate cry that holds as much fear as it does determination, Mark breaks free and spreads his arms wide. The Destroyer reaches for him again, but Mark is gone.
His legs tense and he leaps into the sky, pushing himself higher with everything that he has left.
Missiles streak past Mark as he leaves the world behind.
As the first booming registers of the explosions reach his ears, Mark is high above the city, arms outstretched, eyes closed.
He slows as he reaches the dusty clouds, passing through them in a few seconds, before finally stopping.
Mark hangs in the air above the violence and death below him. Up here, above the fiery clouds, he opens his eyes and finds that there is nothing but the full moon staring back at him.
He smiles, and stays there just a moment. Gravity doesn't claim him just yet.
Though it is a mental struggle, a fight for every second, Mark hovers there. Not flying – but not falling, either.
It's a start, he thinks.
Then his face twists into a snarl once more, for one last battle, and he lets himself fall back through the clouds into hell, fists outstretched as he races towards the fiery crater of swirling flame and grit.
The final missile races without a sound towards the wreckage below, and this missile is screaming.
The Destroyer picks itself out of the crater, losing cohesion as it tries to stand. Pieces of it break off as the tiny machines within it fall out of synchronisation and, separated from their energy source, tumble away on the wind as nothing more than dust.
What little energy it has left is put into maintaining its grip on existence – all around lay the smouldering bodies of what it once called its army. Before it can let out a furious bass-scream of loss and anger, something falls from the stars and punches it back down into the shadow.
When the dust clears and the smoke blows away on the wind, it is Mark that is standing over it, seeming to glow with a self-assured strength. His shorts are ripped and blackened, his chest rising and falling with each deep breath. With broad shoulders and a grime-covered face, his dark eyes stare down at what remains of the Destroyer.
“It's over,” says Mark, his voice loud and firm. “You've lost.”
The Destroyer is a fading relic of itself. Only a faint red outline lies in the rubble, looking up at its executioner.
“I can make this quick,” he says, and leans down. “No more fighting.”
“No,” comes a low whisper, so deep that Mark feels it like poison in his lungs, cold and deadly.
Mark realises its intent too late. The Destroyer lifts itself like a ghost and ascends, lifting itself into the air where it is little more than a shimmering memory.
“The war,” it trembles, fire lighting around itself, “is not over.”
With that, it shoots into the air.
Mark leaps after it, crying out, but it is too late. The Destroyer splits itself into six tiny, blazing red fires, which shoot off into the darkest corners of Glasgow, finding six last soldiers to fight for it.
He catches up with what is left of the Destroyer as it splits, punching at thin air as it disappears.
With disappointment spread across his face, Mark falters and falls back to the ground. He hits the crater with a booming thud and lies there, breathless, as the fires begin to die around him.
The heat seems to fade, and above him, a wind begins to blow the worst of the ash away.
Mark lies in the silence, and waits for t
he world to fix itself.
For the time being, he is spent.
Trespasser One finds him half an hour later as the squad sweep down through ground zero.
“Found him,” the Trespasser shouts. “Don, get over here.”
“I'm fine,” says Mark, sitting up in his crater. “I'm fine, just... tired.”
The Trespasser throws his gun aside and drops into the crater, offering Mark a hand up. Taking it, Mark lets the Trespasser heave, struggle, and pull him up into an open embrace. “You bloody did it, son.”
“I didn't,” says Mark. “The missiles did the work. It's not over either.”
“What?” asks Jamie, appearing at the top of the crater.
Mark pushes himself away from the group and leans on a piece of rubble, a hand on his head.
“It's dead – the Destroyer, I mean. It's gone – but it copied the Protector. Before it died, it sent six last fires off into the city. We've got six more monsters to put down.”
“We can let the Agency deal with that,” says the Trespasser. “Right now, we're getting everybody out of here.”
“Is that it then?” asks Jamie. “Is it over?”
“Yes and no,” says Mark.
“Yes,” says the Trespasser. “Earth isn't under threat anymore. You did it, Mark.” He pats the superman on the shoulder. “You won.”
“This doesn't feel like a win,” says Mark, staring up at the blazing backdrop of a ruined Glasgow.
“I'll take it,” says Jamie. “Maybe we couldn't save most of Glasgow, but Mark – you saved the world.”
“No,” says Mark, smiling despite himself as the rest of the squad appear around the crater, looking down at him. “We saved the world.”
“Still not superheroes.”
“Shut up, Cathy.”
In a cold concrete room below Glasgow's burning surface, a man called Gregor sits aside a dying King. Dust fills the room, choking them, and the lights flicker back on after their time in the darkness.
“Electricity,” whispers Gregor. “Maybe it's over?”
“Maybe,” slurs the King. His eyes are closed, and his head lolls to the side like a tired child. Gregor has his cold, clammy hand in his.
Kingdom: The Complete Series Page 35
