‘So are you,’ roared Cú Roí. ‘You and that horror you carry. You are no better than me.’
‘Maybe not. But when I take your head, I know this world will be a better place.’
‘Liar! Hypocrite! You care nothing for this world or its people. Leave it to me and you can keep your Tower. I will let you be. I will even allow you to hunt here, should you choose. The war between the Therians and The Towers could end now. I will crush the human cities. I will destroy their technology. I will rip up their roads. The magic will return to this land.’
‘No!’
‘Why not?’ Cú Roí hissed back. ‘Why not? I offer you and The Towers a future. Why do you so desperately want to kill me? Why? I offer you peace and you refuse. Why do you want to kill me?’
‘Because I cannot die unless you do!’ Grímnir yelled.
‘Yes. That was the truth. When I die, you will die. We are different, after all. I fight so hard to survive, and you fight only to … cease. An immortal who wishes for death. An immortal who would doom his entire race for these insects. It is abhorrent.’
With a shout, Grímnir charged towards the giant.
Rowan pushed the two personal rescue devices up onto the roof with a grunt, then pulled himself up after them. He spun and slammed the hatch down. The locking mechanism was gone, melted away when Cam had burned it open.
Turning, Rowan saw the Maiden sitting next to Cam. The young Elf lay unconscious. Fires raged everywhere. The roof was blistered and soft underneath his feet. Rowan ran over and dropped the red boxes. His left hand throbbed – he had burned it somewhere below. He couldn’t remember where. The adrenaline was starting to wear off, and a whole chorus of minor aches and pains, and cuts and bruises were starting to sing. Ignoring them, he reached past the Maiden to check Cam’s pulse. He couldn’t find it, but he wasn’t sure what that meant in an Elf. His leg was a mess; the makeshift bandage had soaked right through, and a puddle of blood rippled around him. Rowan had seen a lot of injuries in his time, and he worried that Cam had bled out.
‘He’s alive,’ the Maiden said. ‘Just.’ She reached out and took one of Cam’s hands. She held it gently, pressed between her own.
‘We’ve got to get him up. There are Barghest down there. It won’t take them long to work out where we are, and that hatch doesn’t lock. We need to get down off this roof.’ Once, twice, three times Rowan slapped Cam across his scarred cheeks. The Elf groaned feebly and tried to bat his hands away. Encouraged, Rowan began shaking him, jolting his head back and forth. His long blond hair whipped and tumbled around his face.
‘Wake up!’ he shouted into the prostrate Elf’s ear.
‘No …’ Cam said. It was followed by a string of gibberish.
‘God damn it, Cam, wake up. Barghest. Lots of Barghest! Wake up!’
‘Father?’ Cam muttered. His eyes finally flickered open. ‘What’s going on? Ow, my head. Have I been drinking?’
‘No, you dumb bastard, we’ve got to go. Get up. Get up!’
Behind Rowan, the hatch slammed open with a clang. A probing mound of pink tentacles spilled onto the roof. ‘Oh shit,’ Rowan said. ‘Oh shit. Look. Over there. They’re here. We’re dead.’
Before the Barghest could pull itself onto the roof, the Maiden raised her hands. The earth that had collapsed onto the roof with the Lamborghini bunched up in a solid six-foot wall. It teetered like the crest of a wave and then slammed down into the hatch. A mass of debris pushed the emerging Barghest back down the hole and blocked it. ‘They will not be held for long,’ she said.
Cam tried to pull himself up, but his leg collapsed and he screamed. Rowan lifted him to his feet and held him there. The Elf swayed and blinked. ‘I … I can’t see.’
Rowan looked into the Elf’s eyes: they were dilated and unfocussed. He was going into shock. ‘I can’t see,’ Cam sobbed. ‘Everything’s gone blurry.’
The Maiden took Cam’s hand. ‘Hush, Camhlaidh. It will pass.’ His breathing slowed and he smiled at the Maiden. ‘I’m sorry. I feel better now.’
She returned his smile and then turned to Rowan. ‘I hope you have a plan,’ she said to him.
‘Sort of.’ He quickly explained what the personal rescue devices were.
‘So,’ Cam said weakly, ‘you want us to abseil five hundred feet down the side of a burning building on a piece of string, whilst a bunch of Barghest do their best to chew through said string?’
‘It’s high tensile steel.’
‘Oh well, in that case, I’m sure we’ll be fine,’ Cam grumbled.
‘Look,’ Rowan said, exasperated, ‘compared to some of the crazy shit you’ve come up with, this is pure A-grade Hannibal Smith.’
‘More like Wile E. Coyote if you ask me.’
‘Do you have a better idea?’ Rowan snapped. ‘You wouldn’t believe what I had to go through to get hold of them!’
‘There are only two of them,’ the Maiden interjected.
‘That is another small issue …’ Rowan began before trailing off. ‘Can’t you fly or something?’
‘No,’ the Maiden said, staring at him with clear green eyes.
‘Oh.’ The west side of the roof erupted into flames that shot twenty feet in the air. Rowan shied away from the heat. With a groan, that part of the roof gave way and collapsed into the apartment below. ‘You two go down, then I’ll pull one of the cables up and come down after you.’
‘You’ll get eaten before that,’ Cam said. ‘Look.’ Pink tendrils had forced themselves through the rubble blocking the hatch. As they watched, the mound covering it went down a few inches. ‘They’re pulling it out from below.’
‘I’m glad you’ve got your vision back.’
‘If the Barghest don’t get you, the fire will,’ Cam said. ‘I don’t think the fire will hurt me though. Not now.’ He lifted a tattooed arm in explanation.
‘It doesn’t make you monster-proof,’ Rowan argued.
‘What do you propose, Camhlaidh?’ the Maiden asked gently.
‘You two get out of here and I’ll hold them off.’
‘You’ll die,’ Rowan said, appalled.
‘You don’t know that.’
‘What? Of course I … that’s a stupid argument!’
‘Look, I’m the only living flamethrower here. I’m the only one who can do this. Get me closer to the hatch.’
Rowan helped Cam hobble back to the centre of the roof, nearer to the hatch. The rubble had dropped another foot, and barbed tentacles were industriously pulling more down.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ Rowan said desperately. ‘There’s got to be another way.’
‘There isn’t.’ Cam smiled at him. ‘My leg’s useless. My vision’s in and out. I feel light-headed. I’m dying, Rowan. Even if you could get me into one of those harnesses, I’d probably pass out before I got to the bottom. Let me do this.’
‘Jesus, Cam. Fuck.’
‘It’s okay. Besides,’ he said with a grin, ‘look at those ridiculous rescue things. I’ve probably got a better chance than you do.’
Cú Roí reared up and his body swelled and distorted. He grew taller, his face elongated, and twin horns sprouted from his brows. A creature like a baby tyrannosaur, halfway between man and dragon, reared over Grímnir. Its head came down and butted him. Dagger-shaped teeth scored his chest.
The Jötnar ignored the pain and whipped Camulus around in a flat arc. A thick scaled arm blocked his. Grímnir ducked and spun under a bicep thicker than his thigh. He slipped behind Cú Roí and saw great gashes in the giant’s back, wormy wingtips jerking in the pulp. In the split-second it took Cú Roí to spin around and slam an open palm into the side of Grímnir’s head, he saw them grow bigger.
Grímnir was catapulted from his feet and spun a somersault in the air before landing on his back on a piece of upturned steel. Rebar impaled Grímnir through his gut. Camulus spun from his hand and clattered towards Cú Roí. The monster kicked it away with a horned foot and advanced on Grímni
r.
Grímnir struggled to pull himself free, but before he could, Cú Roí reached him. The monster stamped on his face, driving his head back onto broken concrete. Grímnir felt the back of his skull cave in. For a moment, his consciousness wavered. Cú Roí clenched both giant hands above its head, then brought them down onto Grímnir’s chest. They hit him like a cannonball. His ribs crushed into his lungs, and blood fountained out of his mouth.
Cú Roí hit him again and again, breaking the tattooed man against the rubble on the roof of the annexe.
‘They’re set,’ Rowan said, crouching beside Cam. He was holding the Immortals’ Requiem in his hands. ‘She wants to go down the south side, which isn’t ideal, but … well …’ he trailed off.
‘Well,’ Cam said heavily.
‘Look, I just wanted to say thank you. For doing this, I mean. It’s really … it’s … well, thanks. You know?’
‘I know.’
‘It’s been an honour, Cam. It really has.’
‘Oh Christ, not you too.’
‘What?’
‘This Lord of the Rings bollocks.’
‘This is Marine bollocks. You’re a brave man, Cam. Brave and true. It was an honour to stand beside you.’
‘Do you know something?’ Cam asked whimsically, closing his eyes. ‘It’s strange, but I’ve lived more in the last five days than I ever have before. It’s not necessarily been very good living, but living all the same. I should have had eternity, Rowan, but I don’t regret a thing. Five days of life. I feel like I’ve accomplished something. For the first time, I feel like I matter.’
‘You matter to me.’ Cam went quiet. Rowan watched the hatch. More tentacles had pushed their way through, and they were slowly clearing the way up onto the roof. In a minute or two the Barghest would break through.
‘I’m sorry about what happened to your sister, mate,’ Cam said.
‘So am I. I’m sorry about your dad.’ There was a long, sad pause. ‘I’m not sure if what you’re doing here is any more of a sacrifice because you’re immortal or not. But I’ll remember you, okay? I’ll remember everything, and I’ll tell any bastard who’ll listen about you. I will. That’s a kind of immortality, too. The best most of us can hope for.’
‘Fucking hell, Rowan. Don’t worry about it. Who wants to live forever anyway, right?’ Cam opened his eyes and smiled. He raised his arm. The dragon tattoo sparkled in the eerie light. Rowan gripped it. They clasped each other wrist to wrist. Like warriors.
Rowan stepped away and the Maiden came to Cam. She knelt by him and held his hand again. He smiled up at her and she smiled back.
‘You would have been a fine Satyr, Camhlaidh,’ she said. ‘I think I would have enjoyed the years by your side.’
‘Go on, get out of here.’ She kissed him on the brow and walked away. He didn’t watch them go over the side. He watched the hatch. He had no idea how long it would take them to get down the side of the building. In many respects, he didn’t care.
Oh, he hoped they would make it safely, but he knew there was nothing he could do to help them with that. He had one purpose. He had to step into the breach. He smiled ruefully.
There wasn’t much left of the roof now. The fires had spread across the flat surface. Skylights had burst open. Air ducts had sagged into molten slag. Flames consumed everything, and smoke choked the air.
He was going to die here. He thought that he might be immune to fire – the beating heat didn’t hurt him anything like it should. Then again, that might just be shock and blood loss, with some fatigue poisons thrown in for good measure. It didn’t really matter. When the roof gave in, and sizeable portions of it already had, he would fall to his death. Or he would be crushed to death. Or the Barghest would eat him. He was going to die.
The personal rescue devices would lower them at exactly six feet per second. It would take ninety seconds to get down the side of the Beetham Tower. Rowan paused at the edge of the roof, hanging over nothing, preparing to begin the descent. Below them was a gauntlet of smoke and fire. Rowan’s attention was elsewhere. Night had nearly fallen, but between what was left of the day and the raging fires, there was enough light for him to watch helplessly as Cú Roí transformed into something halfway between humanoid and dragon.
The Maiden waited next to Rowan. She had climbed into the harness without complaint and climbed over the side of the roof without any sign of fear. Rowan was impressed, despite himself.
‘He’s going to finish changing into a dragon soon,’ he shouted at her.
‘I can see that,’ the Maiden replied, her voice was calm.
‘Can’t you do something?’
‘Maybe. When we get down.’
‘What if he flies away?’
‘It will be very difficult to defeat him.’
‘Great.’
‘I think he is preoccupied. Look.’
Rowan watched as the demonic creature began to pummel something on the roof next to it. ‘What is that?’
‘It is Grímnir,’ the Maiden said.
‘Oh my God,’ Rowan said. The big man must be going through hell.
The pulverising beating stopped. The monster stepped back.
You are beaten, zealot. You were never good enough for this. It is a tangled web between us. You want to kill me to die, but have not got the skill. I want to kill you but can’t, because you are unkillable whilst I live. What shall we do?
‘Give me Camulus back and stand still for a moment, and I will show you.’
A joke? This new world has softened you, zealot. Two giant wings unfurled from Cú Roí’s back. Grímnir watched the giant flap them experimentally.
It is time I left. My pledge remains. Your defeat does not change anything. I will raze the cities and bring this world to heel. I will give The Towers what they desire the most. I will return the magic, and you will recognise me as the saviour I have always been. The Miracle Child. You will soon see that I offer life to all races. I offer you a future. You may even find happiness in your failure. You will see.
‘Never,’ Grímnir spat.
Goodbye, zealot. Cú Roí continued the change from demon to dragon.
The first Barghest erupted onto the roof. Its Medusa’s halo of writhing tentacles spun around it and it shrieked. Cam brought up the dragon mouth palm and seared the thing from existence. A second Barghest went the same way, and a third, but the fourth managed to scamper behind the burning mass of the crane and the upended Lamborghini. He noticed morbidly that there was a human hand poking out from beneath the wreck, and absently wondered who the poor bastard had been – some rich kid, probably.
He pointed his hand at the car and hesitated. It was an amazing car. A masterpiece of the automotive industry. It seemed sacrilegious to do anything more to it. He shook his head. He was being stupid – it was already a write-off; nothing more than an expensive coffin. Dragon fire tore it in half. The body inside was set aflame. He couldn’t see the Barghest … was it dead? He didn’t get time to make sure; a fifth appeared at the hatch, and then a sixth … Cam burned them to ash.
Then there were no more. His vision swam. He tried to stand up but collapsed back with a groan. The wound in his thigh opened up again, and blood ran down his jeans and began to hiss on the roof. Maybe he was fireproof. The thought made him giggle.
He closed his eyes. For a few moments, he felt peace. He had run from death for so long. It wasn’t so bad. At least his leg had stopped hurting. That was almost certainly a bad sign. God, he thought, what a fuck-up. The whole thing had been botched from start to finish. He realised, with a laugh, that stupidity existed within everybody, regardless of age or genus.
He began to hum that Queen song – ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’. Something snorted in his ear in reply.
It hurts. Changing. Becoming. But pain is life and life is pain. I am sure you agree? After all, that must hurt.
The giant was right. Grímnir was in pain. He couldn’t move his legs. The jagged piece of metal
sticking through him had severed his spine. Unless he pulled himself off it, his body could not heal.
Cú Roí’s body was elongating. Grímnir could see bones shifting and sliding beneath skin that was thickening and taking on an iridescent shimmer in the weak light. Every few seconds, a gunshot crack echoed off the Beetham Tower as something inside the monster snapped. Each time, Cú Roí grunted and its massive body went into brief spasm.
A long whipping tail spun out from the base of its spine like pulled taffy, and Cú Roí fell to its hands and feet. Arms and legs bent and became massive. The dragon reared onto its hind legs and unfurled its great wings to their full length. It looked up to the brooding night sky and a blossom of fire spilled from its nose and lips. It was an impressive sight.
Grímnir had seen two specks descending the side of the Beetham Tower just before those vast wings blocked his line of sight. They were coming down quickly. He tried to push himself off the steel shard. The dragon’s great equine head swung back around towards him. Stay there, zealot. The serpentine tail came around in a flat swipe. The barb at its end clipped the side of Grímnir’s temple, and he fell back, stunned, onto the impaling metal.
The huge monster surged forwards. Two mattress-sized feet crushed Grímnir back onto the roof. For a moment, there was nothing but cold smooth scale and a faint smell of sulphur. Grímnir couldn’t breathe. His ribs collapsed into his lungs. His heart stopped.
The weight lifted and Grímnir groaned. He was broken again. His bones fused back together misaligned and crooked.
Yield to me. Yield to me, and I will stop the pain.
‘No,’ Grímnir gasped with the first breath of his inflating lungs. The dragon reared up again. Both its front feet came down like an avalanche to smother him again. This time, a sword-length talon drove through his throat. The weight of the dragon pulped his legs and waist. Grímnir choked on his own blood. Cú Roí pulled the sharp claw out slowly.
Immortals' Requiem Page 47
