What I heard was a wet, gurgling breathing, at least that was the closest thing I could approximate it to. If you can somehow imagine a rhino breathing with a big ole plug of Crazy Slime jammed into its nostrils, you would start to get close to it. That lovely noise was accompanied by a nose-curdling scent that defied all reasoning, like the very essence of three-day-old corpses left out in the sun.
“Abner, what the fuck is going on?” I took a risk letting go of the big guy and cinched my hands on the Mossberg.
“The jailers have finally appeared.” He kept one hand on my shoulder, hovering behind me. “I fear you might have to open your eyes for this. I am unsure if I can keep you safe from this many foes without your aid.”
The scrabbles and snuffles drew ever closer and louder, coming from all around. “So my choices are going insane from the view or getting torn to bits not seeing a bit?”
“A succinct way of putting it, Frank Butcher. I would make your choice quickly.” The moment he said that, Abner abruptly yanked me back, sweeping a huge arc with his free arm. There was a wet-yet-crunchy impact and something gooey splattered across my face.
Fun times, I tell you. Faced as I was with the biggest Catch-22 in history, I figured it was always better to die trying than curl up and wait for the inevitable. Hey, maybe going insane-o in the brain-o would work out for me in the end. One last thought crept in, that maybe our Peacekeeper was already as crazy as a bat in a belfry and this whole trip was a dead end.
Letting go of the heart’s power, the incomprehensible chaos of the prison crashed down on me like a ton of bricks. I was almost bowled over by the sheer sensory overload, but a steady clay hand kept me upright. My mind buckled but stayed in it to win it, at least long enough to perceive the latest thing in a growing list of Stuff Trying To Kill Frank.
Like the place itself, it’s really hard for me to recount what these things were in a way to do them justice. They shared one trait with everything else and that was constant mutation. Their gibbering forms bubbled and flowed, gaining limbs and eyes and teeth and losing them just as quickly. Colors shifted and bits of goo sloughed off their forms as they moved, replaced with more of the sludge from all around them.
I think what made it worse was those few flashes of humanity that came to the surface and then melted away. An almost familiar-looking eye, a hint of a smiling mouth, a flawless arm, it made me think I was going to wind up being rendered down into base parts for these burbling fuckers when they killed me.
As I brought my shotgun to bear against the encroaching horde, I swore to myself I’d put a bullet in my head if there was even a hint of that happening. Some shit is way worse than death.
We weren’t quite to that point yet, so I pulled the trigger, hoping the damned thing would actually work. After all, Tabby said there were no guarantees here.
Despite every rational or irrational reason as to why the Mossberg wouldn’t work, it did, letting out a warbling roar alongside a cone of buckshot. Some of the shot roared forward at light speed, other bits seemed to lazily tumble through the air like dust motes, but in the end, enough blasted out to tear away the chaotic goop that made up our attackers.
Wherever bits and chunks of the things were sprayed, be it on their fellows or the ever-sliding walls, it formed new lumps and pustules. Worse yet, even the slime monsters that got torn completely apart only collapsed into goo for a moment as more of the stuff that made up their bodies was pulled up into it. They’d be back up in minutes if not seconds.
“Got any bubblegum?” I asked, pulling free of Abner and cocking the shotgun.
“No, why do you ask?” the golem said, letting go of my shoulder and swinging his arms around, trying to clear the immediate space around us.
“Damn. Guess I’ll just have to kick some ass then.” I fired my shotgun into the closest slime monster.
Like I would have guessed, each impact popped the target like a festering zit. The real shocker in all this was the fact I wasn’t constantly throwing up. Guess for some reason my stomach seemed to have reconciled itself with the situation.
Probably the first sign of insanity, ya know?
I ignored that thought and pumped the Mossberg again. “So what’s the plan, buddy?” I working the shotgun like a surgeon, blasting and pumping overtime. I didn’t want to know what would happen if these things got a hold of my tasty human flesh.
“We must break through,” Abner bellowed as he threw back some more goo-boys. While he was doing a primo job keeping the dogs at bay, it was the big swaths of death I was unleashing that was giving us breathing room. The second the shotty went dry, we would be overrun. “If you have a faith, Frank, I would climb on my back and pray.”
I could see exactly where this was going. “They’ll bear you down if I’m not shooting, and I can’t shoot and guide at the same time.” I jammed some more shells into the tubular magazine while I had a second of space. It helped my aching eyes and twisting brain to look at the gun, which somehow managed to keep a bit of unflinching reality in the swirl of madness.
“We must take that risk or we will surely be dragged into the mire.” One of the things fell down on us from above like an exceptionally nasty raindrop, but Abner caught it and flung it aside. “I remember the last bearing you gave. We can only hope our goal is not as fluid as the rest of this insanity.”
A slimy bastard lunged as I finished reloading, the first to break through the lines. I managed to slam the shotgun’s butt into the center of mass, which should have driven it back, but the thing had the consistency of hardened snot. Some chunks of it cracked, but the rest stretched around, slapping me in the face with a pseudopod of stinking goo. It didn’t get a chance for a second hit as Abner slapped the thing away.
The slap I’d taken hurt like a bitch, but like every other fucking thing in this shitsack of a dimension, it couldn’t make up its mind how it hurt. The impact was normal enough, but the slime left behind on my skin burned and froze and sizzled and itched all at the same time. I managed to wipe the crap off quickly enough, but I really didn’t want to know how much damage it had actually done.
“Fuck it, you’re right, Abbie.” I climbed onto his back, thankful he was as solid as you’d expect from a walking statue. “Hopefully the Big Man Upstairs is watching out, ‘cause we’re going to need it.” I managed to perch on his shoulders like a little boy with his daddy at the parade, except this kid had a shotgun.
“Have faith,” was all the big guy said before lurching forward.
Looking back, the only way I could rationalize the experience in a way that wouldn’t give me screaming nightmares was (and I won’t lie, it still sometimes does), is to look at it like a shooting gallery of the grotesque.
I mean, these things didn’t seem to be independent bodies. No they were more like extensions of the hellish landscape, fleshy finger puppets of the eldritch abominations that controlled this place. It made it easier, I think, to keep from losing my mind if I could turn this all into the most elementary of military situations and drop back into pure Army training. No rational thought, just keep your gunnery perch and shoot at the most dangerous targets encroaching on your position. Stay frosty, soldier!
It was repression, substitution, all sorts of horrible ways of dealing with mind-blowing trauma, but it got me through. Sure, I probably racked up some big therapy bills, but you don’t get to choose that beforehand. In a life-or-death, fight-or-flight, kill-or-be-killed situation, you do what has to be done. It was Afghanistan, but worse. Way worse.
No cute quips or action movie one-liners, not this time. Sometime in the rush, as my hands kept running through that smooth cycle of shoot, pump, and reload, I know I started screaming, an incoherent battle cry, real primal Viking shit. Just another outlet to the growing madness as more goo-boys were blown away, only to get recycled into another.
Not that things were smooth sailing for Abner either. The environment itself was out to get us and every step was a trap waiting to happen.
It was like the difficulties we had already encountered but turned up to eleven. Quicksand footing, open pathways gumming up with rock-hard slime, falling shards of hardened sludge, and flailing tentacles from the very walls were only the opening acts. Let’s not go into detail about the hordes he was pushing through with their twisted talons and groping tendrils. It was the height of fuckery, just to make it totally clear.
Somehow, though, we didn’t die. I have to grant the big sunvabitch that much. No matter what was thrown at us, he managed to take it on the chin and push on. Between Abner’s strange knack for getting us over the next hurdle and my on-point gunplay, we got to what had to be the heart of the prison.
For starters, it wasn’t constantly shifting and sliming around. It was a glowing beacon of static reality in this chaos, a crystalline tomb that matched, at least on the surface, the appearance of the Cube itself. It was bigger of course, a good ten feet on a side if I could trust my judgment, and firmly mired into the primordial ooze underfoot.
The ground, while far from stable, also seemed to hold onto its shape and consistency around the prison. Twitching, pulsing strands that looked like oozing blood vessels grew over the sides from top and bottom, making it hard to look into the tomb save from one angle which was mostly clear. That was the side Abner barreled up to, the hounds nipping at our heels.
As he slid to a halt, I let off my last shell, haphazardly scattering our pursuers. Between Abner’s sudden halt, the recoil from the Mossberg, and my own mounting mental fatigue, I was thrown off from my perch. I landed in the spongy muck and nearly conked my head into the crystal.
“Last shot, Abbie,” I groaned, trying to find enough purchase in the slime to get to my feet. “It was a good run but–”
Abner, now turned with his back to the tomb, shook his head. “No, Frank, we may have succeeded.”
I scrambled to my feet, surprised to have not already been torn/burnt/frozen to bits. What Abner said became crystal fucking clear as I saw what he already had seen.
Just as the very world had become more stable, more real around the giant cube, I saw the beasts that dared to move into that circle immediately calcify, turning from pulpy and snotty to crumbly and crusty. The first few that bravely followed us, turned into scabby dust for their efforts. After that, the rest pulled back, circling like an undulating tide of death at the edges of the circle.
I smiled at Abner, way wider than any sane man could have and gave out a triumphant cry. “Ha! You stupid bastards! We beat you! We beat your whole stinkin’ universe!” I probably would have started dancing a jig if Big Red hadn’t grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me to face him.
“Focus on me, friend, and calm yourself.” Like before, there was something, maybe that spark of the divine I knew was trapped in his stupid, blocky frame that sunk into my feeble mortal mind. A few moments of intense eye to eye contact and the world resolved itself into something semi-rational again. “We are not quite out of the valley yet.”
I let the Mossberg drop on its shoulder sling and wiped my hands down my face. I could feel the crust of goop and slime, blowback from our mad rush here, and it helped sober my ass up. “Right, yeah. We need to bust this thing open and get our man-slash-woman out.” While the shotgun was dry, I still had the Beretta, useless I figured against the snot beasts, in case the Peacekeeper had gone down to Crazytown.
Abner nodded and turned toward the prison, having to practically hug the side to stay within its protective aura. I did the same. The feeling of reality pouring off the thing had the same steadying influence as Abner did.
Up close and with a saner mind, the whole deal looked simple enough. Inside the cube was a shadowed form, definitely humanoid but indistinct through the crystal. The odd thing was that the glass or whatnot was clear. There was some other substance inside, translucent and silvery that made it hard to make out the details.
I couldn’t judge the size of the figure, but it was definitely in the human range. Either a tallish woman or a medium-sized guy. At least the goop inside wasn’t moving. In fact, it seemed totally inert.
We both peered into the depths for what had to be several minutes before Abner’s hollow voice pierced the gibbering sounds of the horde behind us. “Do you have any insights on our quandary, Frank?”
I rubbed my chin. “Well, I’d say this is a K.I.S.S. situation. You’re ready to do the thing to get us out of here, right?” I hadn’t pried as to the particulars of our exit. All I knew was that Joseph had given Abner something he could break to get us out.
Abner arched a blocky brow as he rummaged in his smock. “Of course, but I do not comprehend how a show of deep affection will open our way.”
“Oh, no. Keep It Simple, Stupid.” I rapped the cube tentatively with the butt of the shotgun. It quivered slightly. It sure as hell felt thin, like a single-paned window. “You’d probably know it better as Occam’s Razor.”
“Ah yes. The most common solution is often the most obvious one.” He looked over at me, and I could hear the sudden concern in his voice. “Still that does not mean it is the wisest–”
There’s times and places for debates, for careful and slow deliberation of every course of action. In the middle of an insane hellscape with an endless supply of twisted smile beasts with only a razor’s edge of protection when every moment in the real world is counting on you is not one of them!
Before Abner could finish his concerns, I smashed the glass with the Mossberg.
22
The cage cracked into millions of shards, fine crystalline dust swept away by the wash of silvery fluid pouring out from the shattered pane. It was just like that time when Bobby hit the fish tank with a baseball (Mom was not happy we had decided to play Home Run Slugger in the living room, that was for damned sure), except this was much, much bigger and full of a whole lot more water. The figure that had been suspended inside gushed out with the rest.
That big onrush of silver sludge threatened to sweep me away along with it. Again, credit Big Red here, Abner reached down to hold me in place. That let me sink in my feet and stretch out my arms like a goalie. I managed to snag a hold of the still-silvery-slimed person before we washed out into the circle of death beyond.
I could barely see past all the slime in my eyes, but I figured we were now all fairly covered with the stuff. At least it was inert as it looked. It didn’t even tingle. Honestly, it felt kind of good, a soothing soak compared to the shit this place was made up of. What didn’t feel good, well, sound good was the keening gurgles that erupted behind us. While nothing about it was the least bit comprehensible, it sounded good for them and bad for us.
It was Abner that pointed out the obvious. “The circle is broken, Bearer! Our haven has been compromised."
Trying to get the crap out of my eyes, I shouted above the din. “Then get us the fuck out of here pronto!” I cinched my hold under the Peacekeeper’s arms. I still couldn’t be totally sure, but it definitely felt like a “he” at this point. “I’ve got this guy.” Some of the silver stuff rolled down my throat. It tasted like the blandest boiled egg whites you could imagine.
I don’t know what happened exactly. There was the sound of splintering wood and a Hebrew incantation that pierced through the mad coos of the monsters followed by blessed silence. That was swiftly followed by a moment of gut-twisting free fall and a bone-shuddering crash. I fell flat on my back onto achingly-but-lovingly solid tile.
We were back on Earth, back in the Pendleton Building! Okay, sure, we were covered in slime and who-knew-what-else, but we were alive and we’d won! We got our man! Boo-fucking-yah!
And yet, as I picked myself up, the Peacekeeper starting to stir in the pile of muck we had brought with us, I had that sinking feeling we weren’t out of the woods yet.
Maybe it was the Latin chant that ended in a torrent of water that dampened my enthusiasm. Not that we didn’t need a good hose down, not after all of that mess.
Water and dribbling muck clouding my eyes,
I tried to squint at the person standing above us. “Gabby?”
“No, she’s not here.” It was Tabitha’s precise tones that came through as the magical water hose shut down. “Spirits above and below, I honestly didn’t think you would come back from that horrid thing.”
Now that I could see, I gave a quick look around as I Slip N’ Slid up to my feet. In an instant, I could tell we were alone with Tabitha. Gabriela and Joseph were both gone and the office door wasn’t just locked, it was covered in a glowing white seal. The Hebrew characters combined with something that looked straight out of King Solomon pegged it as more of the rabbi’s work. The EnderTech crates were gone save for one and Tabitha looked even more stressed than before. Her business suit was actually rumpled!
“Where is Father?” Abner bellowed, and I could feel the concern in his voice. He spun slowly in place, peering at every shimmering mirror window before ending at the door. “How much time has passed?”
It was a damned good point. It didn’t seem like we had been in the Cube long, but there was no way to know for sure in that twisted reality. “Yeah, what the fuck is going on?”
As if to add to the urgency of the situation, there was a muffled shout, someone yelling through a bullhorn from the electronic distortion, but it was indecipherable through the sound-proofed office walls.
“A few days.” Marlowe managed to keep her game face on despite the strain. She knelt by the Peacekeeper, now mostly clean, as she continued on, “A day too many, unfortunately. We’ve run out of time. The White are here.”
As she began to wipe away the last of the goop obscuring the man’s face, I whipped out the Beretta on instinct. “Shit, shit, shit! How long have they been here?”
As I gave the pistol a check, hoping it would still work after its goo bath, I gave our hopeful savior a once-over. He was a pretty handsome looking dude, I had to admit, from strong European Spanish stock (hey, I know some things, yeah?). Sandy brown hair, broad shoulders, and dressed in what could pass as a SWAT uniform if you didn’t pay attention to the runic inscriptions and magical sigils. There was something a hint familiar about the lines of his face and his brow. Not that I had met the guy, but more like I knew a relative or something.
Feet of Clay: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Clans of Shadow Book 2) Page 15
