Cheyne sighed. “The Hierarchy are not here then,” she said almost to herself. “I do not understand this diversion at all.” Her voice sounded hollow, defeated.
Ken rested the tip of his sword on the floor and turned to her. “You don’t sound too happy about that. Isn’t it good news?”
Cheyne scratched her nose. “Let’s be honest, its right there in our faces- why would a demon want to ruin this world?”
“Pointless,” a member of Cheyne’s coven put in helpfully. Cleaver peered into the depths of her cowl but saw only a hint of blonde hair, blue eyes, and her platinum talisman.
“Their plan either runs deeper,” Cheyne said. “Or this is the most elaborate diversion of all time.”
“So,” Ceriden regarded Cheyne with wide eyes. “What is their plan?”
“We’re missing something. And I bet my broomstick Crowe’s in on it.”
“Why?” Ken asked.
“She was here,” Cheyne said. “Orchestrating everything. Now, that bitch has vanished.”
“I saw a dozen robed figures chanting,” Cleaver told them.
“Didn’t Crowe go to Egypt, then Paris?” Ken recalled from Kinkade’s bulletins. “Didn’t she steal something from the Louvre?”
“Yes. The Louvre text,” Cheyne said, then spun towards her coven. “Look into it,” she said urgently. “We need to know everything about that text. Now.”
In the silence that followed Cleaver shook his head and surveyed the chaos around him. Oddly, he felt good. At the end of the day they had re-taken the mall.
“So,” he said. “Who fancies a trip to the beach?”
51
NEW BABYLON - THE BEACH
The lesser Gods tore at the skies.
I fell back as Jondal hurled his staff at my head. I sensed Tanya dancing in from my left, kicking the beach sand into tiny whorls under her bare feet, and watched her engage the Destroyer, effortlessly spinning and ducking under Jondal’s precise swings, pirouetting to avoid one blow, then striking savagely with a lunge that almost broke the skeletal man‘s arm.
I gathered some power. Beside me I sensed Lucy doing the same. I was aware that Gorgoroth- the World Ender- was on his way, but I took a moment to glance sideways.
“So now you’re chosen too?” I had a hundred questions, a thousand.
Lucy shrugged. “Always knew I was, dad, didn’t you?”
I grinned and pretended to reach out to ruffle her hair.
“No way,” she cried in mock-anger. Then she raised a finger. “I’ll soak you.”
I watched as Tanya drove Jondal back. A demon breached our lines. I used my power to thrust it into the sand, forcing it feet first until it was buried up to its neck and unable to move. Then Lucy fireballed its head.
“Go team!” Lucy shrieked. Father and daughter working together. Quaint.
At that moment there was a massive commotion in our front line. Several vampires fell at once, writhing in agony. Then, suddenly, Loki was there! With unbelievable skill he cleared a space around him- an unstoppable, deadly dervish. The deadliest warrior our world had ever known.
Loki leapt through our ranks, his stony face crinkling into the most malicious expression I’d ever seen. He craved all this death and destruction, worshipped at its altar and drank from its poisoned chalice. Above us the Gods trumpeted and then there was an ear-splitting crack as if the heavens had been ripped wide open.
Lightning sheared through the dark, illuminating everything in sparkling incandescence. Thunderclaps pealed in constant succession, a thousand bombs detonating one after another without end.
A vast spinning darkness appeared over the ocean, a darkness that dwarfed the skies into insignificance. In disbelief, I saw the pale grey arms that belonged to the lesser Gods start waving uncontrollably as if in pure terror.
The great darkness expanded once more. Lightning struck the rolling oceans, hissing like molten steel plunged in ice water.
“This is it,” Johnny, in his wheelchair, was at my side. “This is everything we have trained for.”
Loki leapt our way. “My Master has arrived!”
I tried to collect my power but the warrior was too quick. In a second he was among us and I remembered the speed with which he’d punished Eliza‘s single mistake.
This was our death. I cast around desperately for Lucy.
Loki hacked at my neck but I stumbled away. He had hold of Johnny’s elbow with his other hand.
All of a sudden Eldritch was there; the King of the elves struck at Loki until he was forced to focus on his own defence.
“I knew we would meet again, Eldritch-” Loki’s sibilant taunt slipped past my ears.
So, with Loki and Eldritch locked in deadly combat next to us, Johnny, Lucy, and I turned our full attention once more to the boiling oceans.
“This is our last chance,” Belinda came to stand before us now. Tanya Jordan moved to her side. In another second Jade, looking battle-torn and speckled with blood came to stand with them.
“We will make this our line,” Belinda said to the amazing warriors around her. “Our line of death. Nothing gets past it, nothing gets past us. Or we die trying.”
And now Ken walked past me, looking somehow changed in the silvery light. The surfer dude looked harder. Gone was the flippant smile. Gone was the trademark slouch. Here was a man who had found his calling.
“Last stand time is it?” he smiled. “Right where I wanna be.”
Ceriden came to my other side, and helped make a second line with Felicia, Cheyne and Marian Cleaver.
In the next few minutes I saw some of the greatest feats of combat our world had ever known. I felt privileged, breathless, to be a part of it. It all started when the Gates of Hell belched forth dozens of shrieking fiends brandishing weapons, and among them ran Emily Crowe, fresh from Hell. She saw us and sent the whole infernal group at us with a hiss of command. And among us they fell. Ripping. Snarling. Possessed of a bloodlust beyond anything I had ever seen, fired by brimstone and sulphur. But, like I said, we stood firm. Those warriors like Belinda and Tanya, Jade and Ken and Felicia punched and kicked left and right, they slashed with weapons and feet and claws, they made their stand and retreated not an inch. And the fiends of Hell fell dying and dead on the ground, shattered apart, painting the sand with their leaking life-blood, their ranks falling on the unbreakable steel of our iron defence like mere waves smashed upon a mountain of unyielding rock.
Only Crowe remained alive, and simply because her cowardly, black heart told her to flee.
Hundreds of feet above us the skies churned. With a grinding, cracking sound the heavens literally tore apart. The new black hole overwhelmed everything else. The agonized trumpeting of the lesser Gods spoke reams to us of what was happening up there.
It was Gorgoroth. The World-ender. He was here. And he was feasting on the very Gods that had summoned him.
Half-chewed tentacles splashed into the ocean. Chunks of pallid, slimy flesh rained down from the skies, a terrible solid rain that made me want to retch.
I touched Johnny’s hand. Together we expanded our bubble of power until it was just visible in the night air, a faint sheen of light pulsing with energy.
Above us something immense, probably immeasurable, began to force its way through. There was a mind-numbing noise that accompanied it, like a thousand whispers running through my head all at once.
Pain exploded behind my eyes. I turned around, grimacing. I saw Devon struggling to contain this new attack. Lysette had collapsed to her knees. I hoped to God she hadn’t gotten a glimpse of Gorgoroth’s mind. Giles was bent over beside her.
“Do it now!” I heard Belinda scream and saw from my periphery another great phalanx of demons crash into our ranks. Suddenly humans and Ubers were battling everywhere. Loki was still locked in a deadly struggle with Eldritch. Emily Crowe was wearing our forces down on the left flank.
Cheyne raised her arms as the members of her coven assembled. After a mo
ments murmuring, I saw a blur form in the air around the dark-cloaked coven, shimmering like St Elmo’s fire, then portions of the blur shot off in several directions.
Demons were struck but they did not fall. Instead they stopped moving, seemingly mesmerized. Cheyne and her brethren had unleashed a glamour on them, one that robbed them of all volition.
Vampires and lycans fell upon them.
I looked up. A miniscule portion of Gorgoroth had already slipped through into our world, a portion that dwarfed the ocean.
Gorgoroth was the original evil, the root of everything we feared- from the darkness that crawls under your bed to the shadow stalking you in the night. He was the pale white hand that falls on your shoulder in a locked, empty room; the light footfall downstairs that drags you out of sleep. Gorgoroth spawned the very idea of badness, of evil, of the existence of the Devil. It was he who planted that seed in our minds, and left it to be nurtured.
Loki flung elbows and punches and spin kicks. Eldritch blocked well for a time, but then his regal bearing started to diminish.
At that moment Emily Crowe distracted Eldritch with a staff strike. Loki struck a stiffened finger into Eldritch’s neck and even from my position I heard cartilage snap. Eldritch went down clutching his neck. Loki stomped on his head, then growled like a rabid dog.
“I win!” he cried. “Your best of best cannot defeat me! No one will ever beat me!”
My heart and mind choked as I saw Belinda step up to him, a beautiful reed standing before the mighty storm, catching his full attention. Even as I prepared to let loose the power Johnny and I had gathered I saw on Belinda’s face an acceptance at having to engage this deadly opponent. I knew she was ready to die to save us.
I had no more time. Behind me Devon Summers’ voice strained and cracked with the effort of keeping us strong. I squeezed Johnny’s hand and we hurled our bubble of force at Gorgoroth’s maw like a shrieking comet.
It struck true and the God screamed. I watched in awe as the cloud contracted and then expanded further. Gorgoroth’s voice slid through our brains again, sibilant and eerie, the voice that tells psychopathic murderers to commit atrocity. I caught Johnny‘s eye.
“What the hell are we supposed to do now?”
Johnny shook his head. “Try,” he said. “Try again.”
Lucy screamed then, terrifying me. What now? I glanced to see that the Destroyer, Jondal, had crept right up to her side. Still emaciated and as repulsive as a den of maggots he leered at her and reached for her with veiny hands.
“NO!” Lucy screamed and stumbled into my arms.
“I knew I would get my chance with you,” the vile words dripped from his lips like drops of venom. “I promised you, little one.”
Lucy screamed again and buried her head against my chest. In her terror she had forgotten her power. Jondal lurched forward with an insane giggle. I saw the trident in his right hand, sharp and deadly.
Jondal struck. The trident’s gleaming points arced down towards Lucy’s back. I dragged her bodily away, putting myself as the target. But as the daggers were an inch away Tanya Jordan inserted herself between us, effecting an impossible deflection and sending the weapon a millimetre past her waist.
“Pick on me,” she said, her voice a blast of arctic ice. “If you can.”
I hugged Lucy close as Jondal struck and Tanya calmly turned his wrist around twice, breaking it two ways in less than a second and making him squeal as the bones grated. Jondal tried to kick out but Tanya caught his foot on her instep, then stomped once on his knee and once on his shins, both times breaking more bones.
Jondal collapsed in a writhing heap. His squeals were the sounds of eels being burned alive.
Tanya broke his other arm at the shoulder. “Harm a little girl would you?”
Lucy peeked out from the safety of my chest.
Tanya met her eyes, then nodded at Jondal. “Fry him.”
I turned away as Jondal’s screams intensified to the power of ten.
No one bothered to put him out of his misery.
I smiled at Tanya. With a wink she was gone, leaping back into fray, already heading back to confront Emily Crowe.
“We must finish this!” Johnny cried. “Before Gorgoroth destroys all we love!”
I held out my hand to Johnny, and again we summoned our power.
And then, incredibly, there was a scream of jet engines and suddenly a formation of F-16 Fighting Falcons sped over the nearby hotels straight at the black hole that was Gorgoroth. I nodded at Johnny. Here was the diversion we needed.
The F-16’s banked and circled back, sleek streaks of hot metal in the sky, and let loose a volley of missiles into Gorgoroth’s midst. At the same time Johnny and I unleashed our own arsenal. From the beach off to our left I saw two dozen white streaks sear the air as mobile missile launchers let loose their own payloads.
All this earth-born power shattered into Gorgoroth’s core. The whispers in our heads died away and the gargantuan cloud pulsed. But then Gorgoroth must have fought back, maybe in desperation I will never know, but from out of his boiling darkness exploded a mass of pale, writhing arms. Thick grey tentacles struck out at the passing jets. One was struck a glancing blow and flew end over end until it crashed into the sea with a tremendous burst of steam and fire and exploding metal. I saw two more destroyed in the skies, their wings shorn off, their cockpits crushed. Another veered away, only to be struck from behind, and went spinning down into Miami. There was a colossal explosion and a rolling ball of black smoke plumed over the city. The rumbling crash of a collapsing building momentarily stilled the battle-cries around me.
I closed my eyes in despair. What could we do against this? Did we have anything left?
I looked up at the menacing cloud that was Gorgoroth.
It was horrendous. A cloud of foamy horror, scintillating with flashes of lightning and dripping with noxious gases from outer space. Tentacles swayed and struck with startling anticipation and intelligence. And now, even as we gaped in wordless awe, dozens of hairy, spindly legs like those of a gigantic spider dropped down from the cloud.
Dread choked me as I imagined the creature those legs belonged too. A score of tentacles lashed out and played havoc among the mobile missile carriers arrayed just down the beach. I saw men and vehicles lifted high into the air, torn apart, and dropped into the heaving seas.
Tentacles strafed the hotels behind us, destroying the frontages. Concrete and glass crashed into the street. Palm trees were uprooted and flung like missiles over the hotels and into the city.
“I don’t know what to do-” I turned to Johnny.
My confidence bottomed out about then.
“A miracle,” Johnny was muttering, his eyes glistening. “We need a miracle.”
Now I noticed that worse things than demons were starting to emerge through the Gates of Hell. A beast over ten feet tall with scimitar-like talons and a face like a boar stepped out. And somewhere behind it, faint for now, came a hungry bellow that could only belong to something bigger than a T-Rex and probably twice as ravenous.
It was falling apart.
“We need to get out of here,” I fixed on Lucy. I thought about failure. I wouldn’t let Lucy die here.
“No!” Johnny cried. “Look,” he pointed ahead but I did not lift my eyes.
Johnny grabbed my arm and shouted, “Look!”
I glanced up and there, in my sights, was Belinda, striking and leaping back and forth under Loki’s vicious onslaught. The Destroyer caught her in the ribs but Belinda barely flinched, just came back with a lightning fast combination that connected solidly with Loki’s shoulders and face. I saw him step back, shock registering on his face, and then I saw him wilt under Belinda’s devastating attack.
Yes!
She had always been our best. But I had never imagined she could beat Loki. And neither had she. I shouted encouragement, raising my fists. I flashed a manic grin to my right and saw something similar lighting up Lucy’s
face.
We could win this. All we had to do was win our individual battles, and the prize was ours.
Tanya Jordan danced across the sand- a lethal ballerina, rolling and ducking and evading Emily Crowe’s attacks with jaw-dropping skill and grace. In one frenzied blitz Crowe didn’t land a single blow on Tanya, but I saw the Destroyer struck a dozen times.
Spidery legs swept down from the sky, lowering towards the land. Lightning struck against them and deflected off in a score of directions, demolishing trees and the sides of buildings. To add to the feel of being in a war zone I saw the fifth F-16 dog-fighting up there, ducking and diving between tentacles and legs and seeping grey flesh. It was beyond heroic. It was one small jet against the most monstrous creature imaginable, and one air-force pilot’s immense courage against unspeakable evil.
My jaw dropped. The jet weaved in and out of certain death, chasing his vapour trail, firing off missile after missile and then switching to guns, racing to cling on to life.
Before us Loki flicked a wrist and Belinda fell to one knee. I saw the dull glint of a blade in her ribcage.
“Belinda!” the cry tore from my heart like a living thing.
Loki leapt at her, a flying kick that caught her full in the face. I could tell by the way she went down that she wasn’t getting back up.
“NO!” this time it was Ken’s scream and he leapt at Loki without hesitation. Marion Cleaver jumped in too and both men were against Loki, striking in unison to wear their enemy down.
Devon Summers rushed past me, unmindful of her own peril, and dropped to Belinda’s side.
I couldn’t think straight. “No, Oh no.”
Devon bent over Belinda’s body. Their foreheads touched and I saw both girls heads enveloped in the green glow that emanated from Devon’s eyes.
Belinda turned her head towards Devon, and I saw life there.
Ken struck at Loki, his sword slicing the Destroyers arm off at the shoulder, and then Cleaver touched him in the chest with a thin stick that made him jerk in a mad frenzy. Loki went down, spraying blood and convulsing in agony.
Chosen (The Chosen Few Trilogy #1) Page 22
