Herb took a minute to process this. “Megan looked worried.”
“She was worried. About you. She barely left your side while you were in the coma.” Herb closed his eyes as I spoke. “We weren’t sure how to get you out, but then Petra suggested we talk to Psyke, the woman in there in the toga. She’s a goddess of the soul, she was able to put you back in your body.”
Herb rubbed his face. “I feel like I’m still missing stuff.”
“I’ll fill you in as we go,” I said. “Come on, let’s catch up with the others.”
We went to Gearstripper’s workshop, where the gremlin was pulling gear from the newly installed cabinets. Wetsuits for Petra, Herb, and me, scuba tanks for Herb and me, and a pair of spear guns. “Unfortunately,” Gears said, “I don’t have much in the way of ammo for these, so try not to miss.” He scrambled over to the frame Billy stood in and pressed a few buttons, beginning the boot-up sequence. During our fight with Carmilla earlier this week, Billy had taken a ton of damage, but in typical Gearstripper style, the gremlin had worked nearly around the clock for an entire day, restoring the mech to its former state.
Billy’s chest panel popped open, and Gears climbed inside. “It’s too bad all that equipment you had on Olympus didn’t last, Vinnie,” Gears said. “It was pretty cool running with Gizmatron’s stuff.”
While in my house on Olympus, I’d conjured some epic comic book equipment that Gearstripper had worked into Billy’s frame. Unfortunately, it turned out that objects that were conjured on Olympus faded from our world after about twenty-four hours. Objects that were made there, like my switchblade, would be permanent, but something that had been willed into existence didn’t last.
Petra squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry, Vincent. We can do this. All will be well.”
“Do I look worried?” I said with a confidence I didn’t feel.
“Yes. But only because I know you so well.” She gave my hand another squeeze, harder this time. “I waited a long time for you to come into my life, Vincent. Longer than you know. I will not lose you to Hades.” Petra’s soft brown eyes became hard. “I will not allow him to take you.”
I managed a grin. “It’s not on my list of things to do, either, hon.” I felt the smile slide off my face. “Petra, I love you. No matter what happens, no matter how this goes, I’ll find a way back to you.” Our eyes met, and we just looked at each other for a moment, an understanding of everything passing between us.
The moment was broken when Gears called out, “Pre-flight check is finished. Autobots, transform and roll out.”
Chapter 9
A few minutes later, we were stepping out of a portal and into what was left of Dana’s town square. While most of the town was submerged, a few pieces of it were still above water and used as a park. The good news here was that it was still winter, so cold that it stung when I took a breath, so we didn’t have any innocent bystanders to deal with. It was midmorning, and the sun shining down onto the snowy ground gave the place that picturesque feel that you only get on postcards. I let out a frosty breath and looked around as I thought about our mission. Find Croatoan, trap him in the soul crystal, and take him back to Hell. I knew we could do this. The people I was with were some of the most talented, resourceful, and powerful I’d ever known. But I was sweating in the cold air just the same.
“Don’t worry,” Petra said. “We’ll make this right.”
“I still can’t believe Aphrodite argued on my behalf,” I said to her as we began walking down a snow-packed trail. “If I don’t get out of this, thank her for me. For what it’s worth.” Petra gave me one of those dazzling smiles of hers and slid my hand into hers. The group of us walked in silence for a while, Jeal invisible in case any civilians did show up. When we came to the edge of the water, I said, “Gears, do you have a fix on where the agents sank Belzatha?”
“Well, they didn’t exactly have GPS back in the 1930s, Vinnie,” Gears said. “But man, if they did, think of how it would’ve changed the war effort. Anyway, the notes you showed me aren’t super specific. They mention that landmark” — he gestured to the post in the center of town, and then to the water — “and this body of water. Best I can tell, the casket is about a few hundred meters out and ninety feet down.”
“Sonar?” I asked.
“Working on it,” Gears replied as Billy extended one of his palms toward the water. “Okay, let’s see.” I could hear him tapping on keys through the speakers in Billy’s shoulders. “The case files say that Belzatha’s casket was lead-lined granite. Jeez, it’s like they were burying Superman or something. Billy should be able to pick that out easily given the rest of the terrain down there is just going to be dirt.”
“Didn’t you say the town had been submerged?” Herb asked. “Aren’t there whole buildings down there?”
“No,” I said. “That would be toxic to the water supply. They tore down all the buildings before the area got flooded. Just empty foundations down there now.”
“What about the graveyards?” Herb asked.
“Come again?”
“The graveyards,” Herb repeated. “Did they dig up the dead and move them someplace else? Or are they still down there?”
“I… I don’t know. Gears?”
More keyboard clicking as Gears paged through data. In my mind’s eye, I saw an Iron Man-like HUD over his face, the mirror image of text displaying over his features as he skimmed through it. “Working on it,” he said. “Um… bad news, guys. It says that most of the graves were moved. There were at least a few that— Hang on. Vinnie, I’m getting a ping back on sonar.”
“The casket?”
“No, it’s too big to be the casket, and it’s moving. And now there are a bunch of smaller somethings moving in its wake.”
“How many?”
“About fifteen little ones and one really big one,” Gears replied. “Closing fast.”
“What else can you tell me?” But I got an answer before Gears had a chance to respond. A massive undead beast burst through the surface, water running off its dead gray flesh as it made its way to the reservoir’s edge. It was easily the size of a Mack truck cab, and the earth shook as its forepaws pounded onto dry land. Its milky white eyes locked right onto us, and it let out a howl that chilled me to the bone. A pair of massive buckteeth protruded from its mouth, and it slapped a giant, flat tail down on the ground nearby, the reverberation knocking us to the ground.
“What the—” Herb began. “Is… is that a beaver?”
“Yep,” I said. “It is.”
The Wampanoag tribes that are native to Massachusetts have lots of legends. There are stories of pukwudgies, those nasty little trolls that like to push people off cliffs. There are stories of Hobomock the trickster, who eventually became equated with Christianity’s devil, and there’s Granny Squannitt, a witch whose name was used to frighten children into behaving. But they also had some tales of giant beavers that roamed the land, terrorizing the tribes and requiring dozens or hundreds of arrows to bring down. Those beavers, whether due to some magic that permeated the area, or perhaps due to whatever made them so damned big in the first place, often reanimated after they died, and no one really figured out a good way to deal with a giant beaver zombie. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some in Hockomock swamp, and since Croatoan had been in the swamp recently, I also wouldn’t be surprised that he’d decided to pick up a pet.
The wights that were stalking out of the water were another story. While most of the graves had been moved when the towns were sunk, any that hadn’t would be a resource for Croatoan to exploit. And of course, Croatoan would’ve focused on those as soon as possible to build up an undead force. “Herb, you and I take the beaver, everyone else, deal with the wights. Go!”
Petra, Gears, and Jeal sprinted forward, the wights meeting their charge. I Ope
ned a portal beneath the beaver, but before it got big enough to swallow the creature and drop it on the other side of the reservoir, the brands on my chest burned so hot that I lost my grip on the extradimensional energy. It seemed that while Hades had restored my ability to portal, he hadn’t restored it to full strength. The bigger I tried to make the portal, the more it hurt. Making portals for my friends and me to walk through hadn’t been a problem, but apparently anything bigger than that was going to cost me. Okay, so I couldn’t just drop the massive undead far away. Maybe I could—
The beaver roared and charged forward, and I didn’t quite get out of the way in time. I stumbled backward, and the beaver threw its head at me in a side-to-side attack. There was good news and bad news here. The good news was that I got hit by the flats of its massive teeth rather than the edges, but the bad news was that I got hit with such force that I was launched thirty feet to the side. I landed in a painful heap and forced myself to get back to my feet. No fire. No force. Portals weren’t helping.
Think, damn it, think.
To my right, Herb was frantically chanting, shimmering green characters appearing in the air in front of him. I needed to buy him time to do whatever it was he was doing. What could I… Hang on. I snapped Open portals beneath its legs, placing the exits above the beaver’s head. The beaver’s bulk hit the ground with an earth-shaking thud, enough that I nearly toppled over. It scrabbled and shifted, thrashing against the ground, unable to understand why its legs refused to move it. Its feet flailed ineffectually against open air six feet above its head, and the scene would’ve been comical if the thing wasn’t trying to kill me.
The brands on my chest burned as I held the portals, but the beaver was effectively trapped. Sweat began to run into my eyes, and I risked a glance at Herb. The string of characters he was chaining together was now as long as my arm, and had changed to a pulsing red. Over his shoulder, I could see the others engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the wights.
Petra was throwing them around like rag dolls, hoisting them up by their necks and hurling them back into the water. Her beautiful face was twisted in a snarl as she flung the undead around, her normally gentle brown eyes gone hard. Beyond her, Gears called out, “Forward, forward, high punch!” Billy abruptly ripped off his faceplate, revealing a hideous lizard visage beneath. A jet of acid sprayed from his mouth and melted the closest wight’s head. It looked like he’d added a few new Mortal Kombat moves to the mech since last time. As the mech replaced its faceplate, a pair of wide-range blasters blossomed from Billy’s wrists, and he began mowing wights down as they approached. Jeal had assumed dragon form and was making strafing runs on the undead, raking them with her talons and burning them with jets of flame. “Vinnie,” Gears called, “sonar’s picking up more blips coming in. Small ones, maybe ten of them.”
“How we coming, Herb?” I asked.
In response, the necromancer threw both his arms forward, and the shimmering eldritch characters surged out, boring into the beaver’s flesh like a drill. The monstrosity screamed as the magic tore through it, and then it went still. I let go of the portals, and the beaver collapsed to the ground. Herb and I turned as a fresh wave of wights burst from the water’s surface. Gears had been spot on, another ten of them. Herb was already chanting out a fresh string of characters. This was taking too long. I needed—
Time.
I needed time. I hadn’t been able to manipulate time lately because of that damned chronometer, but now that it was gone… I focused, willing time around me to slow. Everyone dropped into slow motion. To my left, Petra was delivering a face-crushing punch to a wight. Beyond her, a blast of azure energy was just pulsing from Billy’s guns. Jeal was suspended mid-flap, and a half-formed character cast Herb’s face in red light. To my eyes, the wights were just standing there. I knew I couldn’t hold this for long, but I was going to take advantage of it. My switchblade dropped into my right hand — my only hand — and I went to work. The brands on my chest were already burning, but I forced the pain from my mind as I slashed wight after wight with the knife. Finally, the pain became too great, and I cried out as I dropped to my knees, the switchblade falling from my hand. Time snapped back to its normal speed, and the wight’s ichor sprayed everywhere at once, dozens of them collapsing from wounds they never even felt.
My friends made quick work of what was left. “Are you all right?” Petra asked, kneeling down next to me.
“Peachy,” I replied, hauling myself up only to flop back down. The pain in my chest was so intense I was having trouble taking a deep breath. I didn’t think I could do any more temporal manipulation for a while. Petra knelt beside me, rubbing my back. After a few seconds, I put my hand on her shoulder, and she helped me to my feet. “Gears, do you have a fix on the casket yet?”
“I think so,” Gears replied. “It’s about two hundred meters in that direction.” He pointed out over the water.
“Lead on then,” I said. “And let us know if any more undead head our way.” We donned our scuba suits, and I was grateful for Petra’s help, as trying to dress myself while missing an arm was way more challenging than I’d expected. Once I was zipped up, the lot of us waded in. Petra, being made of living stone, doesn’t need to breathe. She also isn’t buoyant, so she can’t swim. She’d walk along the bottom of the reservoir, Billy by her side. From what Gears had told me, Billy was sealed up tighter than a submarine, and all his tech was waterproof. A series of high-intensity LEDs had popped out of the mech’s shoulders, giving us a pool of hazy light to walk through. Jeal swam circles around us, her dragon form proving as adept in water as it was in the air. Herb and I left trails of bubbles in our wakes, the respirators in the scuba masks making me think that Darth Vader was following along behind us.
Billy’s shoulder lights flashed green and red, an indication that something was coming our way. About six wights drifted toward us, their hands outstretched, their black ragged nails like razors. They weren’t exactly swimming; it was more like they were lunging through the water, the same way an astronaut might hustle across the surface of the moon. Petra intercepted the first one, tore its arms off and threw the pieces to the side, where they drifted up to the surface. Jeal couldn’t breathe fire underwater, but she could grab the wights by the hair and fly them away. Knowing kobold tactics as I do, she’d probably drop the undead on some rocks from fifty or sixty feet in the air. Even if that didn’t kill the wights, it would break their bones and render them immobile.
Herb and I were at a bit of a disadvantage. Water dampens eldritch magic; that’s why Belzatha had been buried under so much water in the first place. But while that was great for preventing a demonic spirit from possessing it, it also meant that Herb’s necromancy didn’t work right now. And I didn’t have any special powers or talents for fighting underwater.
Which was why we’d brought the spear guns.
I lined up on a wight and fired, sending a fifty-two-inch shaft of metal surging through the water. My spear took one of the wights in the shoulder, punching through it and sending it spiraling away from us. Herb’s shot went wide. Unlike a regular firearm, spear guns work via giant rubber bands. Reloading means you need to get ahold of said bands, pull them back along the length of the gun, and then fit the spear in place. While this doesn’t sound hard, keep in mind the gun is a little over four feet long, you’re loading it underwater, and you need two hands to do it. So in my case, that meant that one shot was my only shot, and now another wight was moving in on me.
Okay, time to come up with a Plan B. Forculus once told me that portals were a great weapon if you were clever. Dropping someone from a height, causing them to strike themselves, putting them in the path of one of their allies, those were all great ways to employ a portal. But I’d never Opened one underwater before. If I popped one Open behind a wight, and put the exit back up on the shore…
And as the extradimen
sional energy sizzled open behind the wight, there was a tremendous pulling on all of us. The portal was effectively acting like a drain in the reservoir, and just like when you pull that plug in the bathtub, the water wanted to run out with force. The wights were sucked through and launched onto the ground hundreds of feet away. Confident that they wouldn’t be getting back up, I snapped the portals shut, and we drifted forward, carried by the inertia of the water. I let myself feel a bit proud and clever for that one.
Gears gave us a thumbs up and then pointed ahead. Billy’s lights reflected wildly around us, but from what I could see, there were another three wights ahead of us. They were standing above something, and while I couldn’t make it out, there was a dull yellow glow coming from it, casting them in an eerie pale light. That would be coming from the wards the original Caulborn agents had set up when they’d imprisoned Belzatha.
As we got closer, it looked as if the wights were standing over a seven-foot-long stone box. The center wight held a small cylindrical stone in both hands, and said stone was pulsing with a faint red light of its own. That would be Croatoan. The other two wights were chopping at the box with rusty hand tools. Normally, you can’t generate enough force underwater to swing a hammer effectively. Undead strength being what it is, though, they were cracking the stone a bit more with each swing.
The wights saw us, but rather than spring forward to attack, they hefted rusty pitchforks and charged at us. The first one’s attack struck Billy in the chest, knocking the mech back into Petra. The second one narrowly missed my head, but severed the tube connecting my scuba tank to my mask. I didn’t even have time to take a full breath before water rushed into my mouth.
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