The Unfinished World (The Armor of God Book 2)

by Diego Valenzuela

  Those were the last words he heard in Quantum Ares’ voice.

  Garros felt as though every piece of him was being removed from his body as the Heath creature began to slaughter Quantum Ares viciously.

  When Ares’ T-Core finally extinguished, its eyes went dim and Garros was released. The Apse opened, and from the darkness within, he could see the creature’s many sharp spider-like legs crashing down on Ares, poking holes into its iron flesh. Two massive human-shaped arms had grown from the monster’s chest, and now tore off every piece of Ares’ armor.

  It was too big and too strong, but its size was such that Garros could emerge without being seen.

  Pieces of armor were still being torn off as he jumped out of the Apse and landed on the deceased Creux’s spongy black flesh. Twice he felt the wind of hands and legs crashing down near him, nearly obliterating him.

  “You’ll give me your everything!” the creature roared, still using its many limbs to tear Ares apart. It was as though it was furious at Ares, angry that that measly Creux had dared challenge it.

  Garros took a plunge and fell on the wasteland’s floor, which had grown wet with the Creux’s blood. He had no time to cry over anything; he had to follow Erin’s voice. She was in Milos Ravana. Somehow, she had found her way there.

  No, it didn’t make sense, but they didn’t know anything about the Creux.

  Davenport had left the Armor of God down on one knee outside of Clairvert, and as Garros ran towards it, he saw that the citizens of Clairvert had been intelligent enough to clear as far away from the city as possible, and were still running away. He could tell they were headed towards the ruins of Kerek.

  “Come to me!”

  Garros turned around just as he began to climb up Milos’ boot. The monster stood next to the wreckage that had once been Quantum Ares, and it had spotted him.

  He could hear the booming sounds of spider legs and giant arms crashing down on the floor as the Heath creature began to move towards him. He couldn’t look back, only climb.

  The Apse was open.

  Garros looked back. The monster was coming to him.

  Trusting Erin’s voice was his only drive now. If he went inside and Milos Ravana took him as it had taken so many before, he’d die following the voice of the only person he had ever loved.

  He jumped in, and the hatch trapped him inside.

  ф

  Poole was having trouble breathing as Ezra cradled her in his arms.

  “I need help!” he yelled and looked for Jena; she had run off. “Poole, hold on, help is coming. Just keep your eyes open—it’s . . . it’s not so bad.”

  She had put her hand on her wound, which was still bleeding, so he put his hand on hers to apply extra pressure, to give her some comfort.

  “Ezra—I’ll be okay, right?” she said, and coughed up blood. “Right? It’s just that—Zenith is too far away.”

  “No, hold on. Maybe I can take you to Clairvert—maybe they can take care of you there,” he said, tightening his lips, doing everything in his power not to let her see him cry. “You can make it.”

  “Yeah,” she said and laughed, flashing blood-red teeth. “I know.”

  Ezra had carried Poole—she was so light—to the forest at the edge of the clearing. The Fleck that was rising from Farren’s grave had not seen them yet. It finished crawling out of the floor.

  How could they not see this coming? How could they be so blind?

  It was the most humanoid-looking Fleck he had ever seen—so much so that he barely appeared to be a Fleck, even if it had many of its characteristics: overgrown size, rock-hard skin, remnants of what it used to be before infection. This one, however, was just an enormous hairless human, almost as tall as a small Creux. It was disproportionately muscular, with overgrown pieces of bone sticking out of its rotted flesh. Its face was an eyeless human skull, giant teeth grown long and sharp, mostly buried between strips of muscle and cartilage that stretched from its shoulders.

  “We brought that thing here,” Ezra whispered, and looked down at Vivian, who had begun to shiver. “This is on us.”

  The Fleck turned around. It had heard him.

  In one blink of Ezra’s eyes, it was standing just at the edge of the clearing, mere feet away from Ezra and Poole. Startled, he screamed.

  The trees around him cracked and shivered as the Fleck pulled them up and threw them back, roots and all, as though it had just plucked flowers. The Fleck couldn’t see, couldn’t speak, but it knew they were there.

  It surveyed the area with the fast swing of a giant hand that passed two feet over Ezra’s head.

  Weakly, Poole covered Ezra’s mouth with one hand. He looked down at her and she shook her head, bringing her finger to her mouth. It can hear us, she mouthed.

  The Fleck was distracted as many other noises reached the holes on the sides of its head. The sound of dozens of screams. The sound of a Creux rising to its feet. Of birds taking off. It appeared to want to scream, but its mouth was buried beneath layers of bone and muscle.

  It raised its hand to survey the ground again but just as it was bringing it down, a beam of light pierced its stomach.

  Iron Seraphim appeared from his right and tackled the Fleck. Both monster and Creux rolled on the clearing, destroying the healthy earth beneath them.

  Ezra took the chance and picked Poole up. She screamed in pain.

  He didn’t know from where it was that he summoned the strength, but Ezra began to run, Poole bleeding in his arms, back towards the encampment. If there was any hope of saving her life, it would be there.

  “God dammit. Dammit!” he said, fighting to catch his breath.

  “Ezra!” Jena yelled.

  He stopped. Poole winced in pain. “Drat, it hurts too much.”

  Ezra followed Jena’s voice and found her standing at the end of the path, when he could already see the end of the forest, the end of the island, where they had left Nandi and Jade.

  Jena ran towards him and helped him carry the weight of Poole, though her support was mostly symbolic—there was no way to share it without lowering her, and he was in a hurry.

  “We brought this woman, Maria, she was one of the medics in Clairvert—she can help you, Vivian, at least with the pain, she brought her supplies from the city. But we need to take you somewhere else,” Jena said.

  “All right,” Poole tried to say, and groaned.

  Jena cleaned tears from Poole’s eyes.

  Once in the encampment, Jena pointed her towards Maria, a woman who looked too young to be a medic. She urged Ezra to put Poole down on the floor, and Maria began to work on Poole’s wound immediately.

  Ezra dropped to his knees, wheezing, trying to catch his breath, until a girl handed him a glass full of lukewarm water. He downed it immediately, almost choked on it.

  “Save me,” Poole said, looking directly at Ezra and loading an immense burden onto him. She screamed when Maria smeared a grayish-green paste on her wound, which looked much more severe than he had hoped. “Please.”

  Jena called him to the side. “Ezra, what are we going to do?”

  “We need to take care of Poole,” he said, still short of breath.

  “Yes, but where?”

  “Clairvert is just hours away—we can’t go to Roue.”

  “Are you’re taking her to Clairvert? Look—”

  She pointed at the mountain.

  He fell to his knees again. Lys had risen. Two shapes—one black, one white—knelt before each other where the tallest peak in sight had stood. “That’s—”

  “I’m not sure Clairvert’s there anymore,” said Jena.

  “Can we take her to Roue, then?” he asked. “We need to go there. Lys is going to destroy it, my family’s back there—maybe if we don’t stop we can be there soon, as soon as a few days. Maybe Maria can help.”

  He turned back at another crashing sound. Behind the trees, which he could see shake, Iron Seraphim was still battling the Fleck.

 
“Help me,” he said, and Jena hugged him.

  “It’s Clairvert or Roue, Ezra, those are our only two choices,” she said. “Whatever you choose, I’ll follow you, I promise, but we need to go now.”

  Ezra closed his eyes, turned his head, and said: “Okay. Let’s go.”

  ф

  Garros.

  Erin?

  You’ll have to finish what we started. I’ll protect you.

  Erin. Baby. You’re my life. Where are you? Are you here? I want to see you. Please let me see you one last time.

  Finish it.

  Warm light filled him. It was as though every synapse in his brain had fired. As though every muscle in his body had pumped with strength. He felt power the likes of which he had never felt, as though he could shape or destroy worlds at will—it was exhilarating, intoxicating.

  And then his eyes opened.

  He could see colors that he had never seen before, could see shapes from all angles, not only those before him. He had awoken to a whole other world.

  If Milos Ravana had been humanity’s weapon, Quantum Ares had been but a toy.

  The monster crashed against him, but was immediately diverted by a swing of Milos’ left backhand. Clearly he heard something crack inside the monster’s body, heard it squeal in surprised pain.

  Garros took two steps towards the monster and looked back. It was like being naked; he didn’t have to put any effort. It was light to move, slender, but immensely strong.

  He grabbed the monster’s head, still recognizing some of William Heath’s features lost amid the mutations. The monster squirmed, trying to break free from Milos’ grasp. It took no effort at all to bring Milos’ hands together and crush its skull.

  The monster twitched for a moment, but then stopped moving.

  It was when Garros took several steps back and looked down at Milos’ blood-stained hands, incapable of apprehending the power he now held, that Clairvert finally exploded in light.

  A blue beam shot upwards to the mantle of clouds, clearing the sky above.

  A white figure began to take shape. Something as tall as the mountain.

  Clairvert began to cave in.

  The sword was still inside.

  As debris rained down on the city, Milos Ravana dashed inside, leaving a trail of light in his wake. He could feel pieces of rock and boulders crash against his armor, but they were merely dust to him now.

  The wall Davenport had pinned Lazarus against had collapsed; the sword lay on the floor.

  Lazarus was gone.

  Garros grabbed the sword by the hilt and ran back outside. Debris had already blocked his way in, so he crashed against it like a savage animal, with whatever momentum he could get from one final and careless dash across the city.

  The rain of rock exploded to the outside, and Milos Ravana rolled on the floor, sword in hand, before swiftly scrambling to its feet.

  The monster that used to be William Heath, much like Lazarus, had disappeared.

  A wave of dust suddenly covered him, and he quickly outran it. The opening that was the atrium of Clairvert coughed even more dust and blue rock. All that remained of the city was buried when the mountain all but collapsed into itself.

  Garros gripped the sword tightly with Milos Ravana’s hand.

  Appearing from beneath the ruins of the peak, a white goddess and a red devil rose to reach for heaven.

  Finish it, Erin whispered.

  ф

  Still kneeling, bathing in the birth fluids of the mountain, still going through the process of birth, the goddess looked at her brother—at all the terrible blackness that was him.

  She could feel through their connection what his intentions were: destruction. He intended to find every last bit of life on this planet and he intended to extinguish it.

  But she wouldn’t let him. The planet had not been the place of their first birth. He had no right.

  So they’d have to fight.

  Yes, her brother said. If he had a mouth, it would coil and open to reveal his vicious grin, his sharp teeth. We’ll fight.

  The goddess stretched her arms to the sides and looked for all her children. Immediately she could feel her tiny hearts beating within the shells in which the humans had encased them. He could feel them trapped underground, begging to be released.

  Her brother did the same, and black lightning flew from his fingertips.

  One by one the children’s eyes began to open.

  One by one, the children’s lights began to grow brighter and brighter, burning, carving their way out of the ground. Then, she could see the beams of light emerge from the heart of their green cradles like beacons.

  For hundreds and hundreds of miles, every last one of the children broke through their earthly shell and stood tall and proud, ready to fight. She could see through all of their eyes, feel the powers of each. She was in control of them, and had learned how to use them.

  She’d have to fight her brother.

  But she had an army.

  Her children roared her song, and prepared for war.

  END OF BOOK TWO

  THE STORY ENDS IN

  “THE GOD THAT FAILED”

  Epilogue

  Everybody Dies

  In a world ravaged, lengths beneath a lifeless crust, there was one last light.

  Life was extinguished, but hope remained.

  The doctor’s heart was beating in her chest as though it wanted to escape it, for it knew it would soon have to stop beating, and it did not want it. She took two unsure steps forwards, towards the other woman.

  “We did everything right,” she said, trying not to cry.

  “We did,” said the other one; her voice was inhuman. “Humanity will be forever thankful, even if they never know we existed. One hundred and thirty-two subjects is all we could harvest. We can only pray that will be enough for the fork. No. Don’t cry, Doctor.”

  “I don’t want to die,” she said, rubbing her wet eyes. “Dr. Mizrahi, please—”

  The monstrous woman rose to her feet. The strain had turned her into an immortal monster, but had been respectful of her intellect—it had the desired effect in her body. The nine-foot-tall woman kneeled before the doctor and brought her twisted hand to the doctor’s face. “Doctor . . . everybody dies.”

  She sat on the floor and began to cry.

  “I’ll take you to that long, musical sleep, Doctor. It will be painless, sweet, and eternal. You will find some rest.”

  She was sobbing now.

  “Initiating Protocol Omega.”

  One by one, those that remained in the facility breathed in the toxin. Their brains released chemicals that made them feel at peace and tired. Wherever they stood, they slowly brought themselves down to rest on the floor and went to sleep, never to wake up.

  The last life ended with a sigh.

  More Words from the Author

  Yeah, I’m doing this outro goodbye thing again.

  What are you gonna do, stop reading now?

  . . .

  . . . please don’t stop reading now. : (

  Once again I’ll do the cheesy thing of thanking you, the reader, for being here, at the end of the book. That makes at least two books you’ve read of mine. That’s almost two hundred thousand words. Nearly seven hundred pages. That’s a pretty massive investment of time and effort, so thank you.

  As a writer, I mainly aim to move and entertain, so if you got here it hopefully means I did at least one of those things right, and I’m really glad that all the effort, sleepless nights, and overheated neurons, were worth it.

  Now, I know what you’re thinking: Diego, you mean-spirited albeit painfully sexy monster, you left us with more questions than answers! Also, who the hell hurt you so much and why am I paying for it?

  Yes, I did leave a bunch of open threads, but I swear none of it was by accident or out of laziness; to paraphrase a film director whom I admire: it will all make sense in the end.

  Several aspects of the book
weren’t meticulously planned from the beginning—though it was far more carefully put together than book one, and I think you can tell—but I always intended this volume to end on that precise cliffhanger, with most of those mysteries, those twists, and those promises.

  So now we’re here, at the end of the second book, and I’m now fully committed (whether I like it or not) to finish this trilogy in a way that’s respectful to you, the readers, and more importantly, to the story and its characters.

  So, I come bearing good news and bad news.

  The good news is that I have something very special planned for book three, The God That Failed. I won’t reveal what it is just yet, but it’s very exciting for me as a writer, and I trust the readers will get a kick out of it if I pull it off.

  The bad news is that I won’t be working on the ending of the trilogy immediately. In order to pull off a great finale that outdoes both Armor and Unfinished, I know I need to step away from it for some time, and I’m taking this time to work on two other completely different and entirely unrelated stories which I’ll be hopefully releasing in 2016: Reverie of Gods, and Numen. Both are very close to my heart, and I know you’ll enjoy them as much or even more than you’ve enjoyed the Armor trilogy.

  I know I did.

  But I promise, once I get all the videogamey sci-fi fantasy and werewolf drama out of my system, I’ll go back to The God That Failed, and I won’t release that thing until I’m 100% convinced that The Armor of God trilogy ends on the highest note possible.

  So I’m afraid you won’t get to see the big ending, the big battle, the big reveals, the big feelings, and of course the big robots, until, at least, late 2017.

  Sorrynotsorry.

  As I did last time, I must ask a lot of you. You’ve already bought the book once, but if you liked it, you can still support it without putting another cent in my pocket. Please let your friends know about The Armor of God! Word of mouth is the only tool I have to make my writing reach more people, and ironically it’s not a tool I can use alone.