Crazy is hard to fight.
I tried to do a mental calculation; the Judge had three shots left, the shotgun—I honestly wasn't sure. I had plenty of shells, but I wasn't fast on the reload. I'm no gunfighter. This wasn't a monochrome or a radio serial, I sure didn't have backup to cover me or barrels to crouch behind.
"True," I admitted. I was not quite sure how to proceed. I went through my options. I could start firing. Turn this into a shooting gallery, but Wensem was right behind the mass of Children. I didn't want to risk hitting him or Little Waldo. I could sprint for cover and gamble the armed thugs in the crowd were worse with their weapons than I was; but that seemed like a long shot. Running away might buy me more time, but with my bum knee I wasn't fast, and who knew what they'd do to Wensem?
So I went with the only choice I had left. I pulled the shotgun to my shoulder and aimed it at Black. The crowd seemed to respond to me and hissed in anger. A few moved in front of the barrel, protecting their Father. The sound of more knives and guns being drawn filled the quiet of the tunnel.
We stood there and reality seemed to pause.
There would be only one shot at this. I'd fire my shotgun and the Children would fill me with enough holes to strain water. I breathed deeply, steadying my aim like my old man taught me, slowing my breathing so my shot would strike true.
Well, I thought to myself, it's time. My finger tightened on the trigger.
My best friend and business partner interrupted my sacrifice.
Wensem roared from somewhere behind the crowd. With their focus on me and Black, the Children had completely lost track of the big maero. Leaving him to his own devices with two much smaller cultists.
The body of one of Wensem's guards burst through the crowd like a missile, collapsing as it crashed into an overturned cart. The second went running through the gap in the crowd, a panicked look on his face, his arms outstretched as if trying to get as far away from Wensem as possible. He looked over his shoulder, shouting to the others, until a makeshift spear hurtled through the gap and lodged in his back.
The slow burn had become an inferno.
Cultists moved away from the bonfire toward me, then stopped, seeing my leveled shotgun. They looked from me to the enraged maero who had just killed two of their number. Black was losing control. Panic began to spread.
Peter Black had turned his back on me to watch Wensem, but quickly realized his error and spun to face me again. He opened his mouth to shout, but before commands could come, Wensem charged.
Shoulder low, Little Waldo held in the opposite arm, he smashed into the crowd. Protecting his son by any means. Cultists went flying as Wensem either broke or threw anything he could get his free hand on. Little Waldo wailed, sheltered in his father's arm, his face half-buried in Wensem's bicep.
Black's orders came out in a choking squawk. He dove behind his wife's idol.
My moment had finally come, and everything seemed to flow in slow, precise movements.
I moved toward where Wensem ran. I fired one, two, three shots with the shotgun. Reloaded. Picked my targets. Fired. On to the next. Cultists dropped, some in mid-run, sliding across the smooth tunnel floor. My hands took over, pulled the slide, aiming, firing; while I watched in slow motion as the shells ejected from the chamber and spun end-over-end in a dance.
More gunfire went off. I could feel bullets rush past me, one close enough to cut my cheek. Hot blood ran down my face, but I ignored it; instead I turned to where the near-miss had originated. Pain shot up from my knee, punching me in the crotch and making me gasp for air.
A medium-sized human woman with dark hair and bright gold eyes leveled a fat revolver at me. Those eyes narrowed to slits. Her hand tightened on her weapon. Poor girl.
I shot her in the chest.
A few less brave Children were fleeing down the tunnel; some were banding together on the edges of the circle where the overturned carts had been pushed. Some moved in on Wensem, who beat them back.
I turned to take out a kresh with a wicked dagger, giving myself enough time to look over my shoulder and see Wensem pounce onto two of the thugs at once. He began lifting and slamming the head of one into the ground as he drove a knee into the back of the other. Little Waldo was hanging from the crook of his arm, screaming loudly.
Peter Black poked his head out from behind the stone, his cheeks red, his eyes wide in anger. He yelled something that was lost to the chaos. I fired in his direction, my blast dislodging one of the carved eyeballs and driving Black back down.
To my amazement, the stone bled. Instead of chipped rock, a gaping hole now occupied the spot where the carved eye had been dislodged. It retched jaundiced blood like a sucking wound in flesh.
My brain tried to process what it was seeing. It had to be one of Black's tricks. I didn't have much time to dwell. More Children were rushing toward me. I nearly blew a dimanian in half as he slashed at me with a knife, and brought the butt of the shotgun into the jaw of a maero with beady eyes. The brute stepped back and blinked, shaking off the blow and smiling an insane, toothless smile in my direction. Recognition overwhelmed me: I knew him, he was the maero that had attacked me in the pitch den days earlier. His jacket collar was missing, torn by my hand.
"Hello," he growled, flipping a blade around his hand and bending like he was ready to pounce. "Again."
I leveled the shotgun and pulled the trigger.
Click.
My heart sank. The maero chuckled and lunged. Tossing the gun at his face, I took several hurried steps backwards, trying to put distance between the two of us. The shotgun had slowed him, but he had swung his knife out and barely missed opening up my stomach.
"Father will reward me," he mumbled. I drew the Judge, but had to jump out of the way again, nearly dropping the pistol. The maero slashed again and I backpedaled, my knee promising to make my life miserable if we survived this.
The brute was driving me toward the bonfire, toward Peter Black and the arms of other cultists. He cackled a mad laugh and leapt at me.
Wensem caught him mid-leap and threw him down on the ground with one arm. I blinked, shocked.
"Here," said Wensem, handing me his son.
Little Waldo screamed at me, his face pudgy and fat, his mouth open wide. Blood had spattered his tan baby cheeks, but he was unhurt. A few cultists circled like buzzards and I held out the Judge, daring one of them to try to advance. Wensem spun, now with both hands free, and punched the other maero as he tried to rise. The swing was so fierce that Wensem was caught in its momentum and fell to the ground. There, he began to pummel him.
Maero are hard to kill. Some built-in toughness. Their large size, the thickness of their skin, their blood—it all plays into their resilience. Seeing two of their species fight without restraint was shocking. Wensem punched, bit, and kicked; and the other maero struggled, jabbing with his knife, drawing a little blood, cutting an arm, taking a chunk out of Wensem's ear.
I had no idea how long this fight would go on or how much damage they might do to each other. An old road priest once told me a story he'd heard of a maero who had his head cut off in a farming accident. He went on to say the old fella lived for three days without his head while waiting for the doctor. When the doctor finally arrived, his head was sewn back onto his body and the maero healed up as if nothing had happened. Went back to being a farmer and lived for a hundred and nine years. But road priests tend to spin wild yarns.
Wensem stood, lifting the other maero and throwing him headfirst into the bonfire. The maero thug screamed and rolled down out of the pyre. He dragged himself away, clothes and skin smoldering, as he crumpled. The cultists circling us backed away, then fled.
Peter Black's hold over his followers was collapsing.
Wensem turned to me and plucked Little Waldo from my arms. He was very much alive, but looked ragged and worn. I wondered if the road priest's story was actually true. Blood ran from hundreds of small cuts and gashes. He looked like he had taken a shotgu
n blast to the gut and he was missing a few teeth. He gave me a pained, crooked smile as he held his son close to his chest, breathing heavily.
Shoving the Judge back into my jacket pocket, I picked a shotgun off the ground and began feeding more shells from my pockets into its hungry mouth. I watched for any cultists still keeping the faith, and dared Black to peek up over his cover.
"Thanks for the save," I said, watching a few Children disappear down the tunnel. I looked at my partner and apologized, "Sorry about this. Is Little Waldo okay?"
Wensem patted his son on the back and nodded. His soft voice was odd, juxtaposed with the recent violence. "He's scared and hungry, but he'll be fine. I won't let them touch him."
"Look, get yourself and your son out of here. Head back down the tunnel—there's an elevator there, although I'm not sure if it's working. I heard it was disabled, but there should be some way to the surface, a ladder or something. There's always a failsafe built into those things."
"What are you going to do?" Wensem asked.
I fired my new shotgun twice, sending a few courageous true believers scurrying backwards to the ring of overturned carts. I looked toward the pyre where Peter Black hid.
"I lead that thing to Lovat. Brought these murderers down on its citizens, and on my friends. I need to end this. Forever."
"Wal..." Wensem began, but I wouldn't let him finish. I shook my head.
"No. Go."
"Wal," he said again.
"Go!" I shouted and rushed from his side and toward the bonfire.
Wensem watched me go then rushed from the light of the fire and into the darkness, sending a dauger cultist sprawling as he disappeared. I hoped he'd be okay. Somehow knew he'd be able to hold his own. Maero are hard to kill.
Now it was just me.
Me, and what remained of the most loyal Children and their satyr Father.
Four cultists moved to flank me, standing dangerously close to the fire. They held their weapons at the ready: more shotguns.
Peter Black peeked up over the edge of the stone avatar and, seeing I was alone, stood atop it again, leering down all the while. With his hair missing, he looked more monster than dimanian. Wild horns whipped back from pink flesh, a hooked nose hung off a bent face, small eyes stared out from under a heavy, sloping brow.
"You can't stop it, Bell. She'll awaken. She'll just be angrier. So angry. We didn't follow her commands, we didn't gather all the sacrifices. You've only made things worse! Lovat will suffer! You will suffer! You haven't saved anyone! In fact you have done the opposite. You've killed millions!"
The glow from the idol pulsed now, and the stone seemed to writhe below his hooves. The eyes seemed to move in waves of heat, and the tentacles seemed to press against one another as if shifting. I couldn't look away. Was this stone actually Cybill in some dead and inanimate form? Mummified? Was that even possible? Hagen would have had a field day.
"I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin. I will put breath in you, and you will come to life," said Black to the idol. He looked at his followers. "My loyal ones, fetch the Guardian."
Two of the remaining four followed his orders, and I fired two blasts from the shotgun, driving one to the ground and sending the other backwards into the flames. The human screamed and dropped to the ground, rolling out the fire that had burst along his crimson jacket. The sight of their partner on fire broke the resolve of Black's remaining entourage. They fled.
And then there were none.
Black's face dropped.
He leapt down, so now he was between me and the fire.
He was naked and wild-eyed. He bared his teeth like some feral cat.
Dropping the shotgun and pulling the Judge from the waist of my jeans, I leveled it at Black.
His wild rage choked, seeing the dark end of my handgun pointed at his face. He seemed to regard the weapon with the turn of his head, a motion much like that of his dead gate.
He was a creature I had never seen before, a satyr, possibly a demigod, and I wondered if the gun would have any effect on him. He smiled a sleepy smile and watched me lazily for a heartbeat.
Then he burst away: rushing from the fire, the stone, and into the belly of the ancient tunneling machine.
I surveyed the scene around me: A few bodies lay scattered around the open space. Most of the Children had fled, but a few hid behind overturned carts, unsure whether to remain or flee. Survivors were dragging fallen comrades away from the center of the ring with looks of panic as they spied the bonfire.
Odd.
I had been so wrapped up in Black that I hadn't noticed what had begun atop the bonfire. When I looked up, I felt my heart stop.
You couldn't call the object in the fire a stone. Nor could you call it an idol. Stones and idols are still, dead things. The altar was writhing in the flames. The festering yellow that had glowed from deep within the stone had brightened to a sulfur-tinged green, and it moved…the thing moved. I blinked and rubbed my eyes, unsure of what I was seeing and wondering if I was going insane. It wasn't heat waves causing optical illusions—the thing actually moved.
Thoughts slowed like sap in winter as I struggled to comprehend what I was seeing. Not stone. Not stone at all. Mummification. Flesh hardened to rock. Frozen in a stasis more protective than the best armor. I had heard the tales. Seen tiny idols in curio shops, but never did I expect such a thing to actually be true. It was madness.
Warmed by the flames, fueled by the flesh of the murdered, Cybill was stretching, struggling to awaken, and as she did, she seemed to be growing. The beak that was her mouth clicked together with loud bangs, and her hourglass irises rolled around on her eyeballs lodged in their sockets. I shuddered as tentacles pressed and stretched, watched as they loosened from their stony sleep. Spiders who had lodged in the creature's cracks tumbled into the flames with a hiss. Loose arms slapped about in the coals that warmed the creature and sparks burst from the slaps, sending glowing ash soaring into the air.
Cybill.
The Mother.
A First.
Fleeing was an option, but to what end? Black was still here. Cybill was awakening. She would escape and she would murder millions. This was what Black had meant. Cybill was angry. She would take her rage out on Lovat. I should have been in a mad panic, but rationality seemed to save me. I stared. Awestruck? Horrorstruck? Something. Amazed, repulsed, and dumbfounded at what I was seeing.
I was discovering giants were real.
I stumbled backwards, and any thought to the dangers at hand were lost as I took in Cybill's immense form. It was just… wrong. Forget about the young races of Earth. Ignore the howls of the Purity Movement's pro-human agenda. It wasn't the kresh, the dimanian, or the cephels that didn't belong: this creature didn't belong. It didn't fit. It wasn't right. It was predator, ruler, and slave master. It was an abomination.
My mind pulled away from what I was seeing, unwilling to witness any more. Thad's face appeared, his eyes narrowing as he studied a pair of spectacles. Fran came next, hidden behind her mask, but still elegant and beautiful as she played her flute. August appeared, my former friend, my possible betrayer, his laughter filling the room as he devoured one of Mrs. Sardini's signature dishes. Even Doctor Inox, brutally murdered for our brief association. So many dead, so many murders, a city terrorized, and for what? This thing? This bizarre monstrosity that didn't belong?
I shook my head, trying to clear it, stepping backward as Cybill flopped about. She lifted her heavy mass upward, then collapsed into the red hot coals beneath her. Pain shot up from my knee, snapping me back into reality. My ribs complained of their treatment, and I realized it hurt to breathe. I was exhausted. My limbs felt like they were tied to millstones. My mad rush into Black's flock had taken more from me than I realized, and adrenaline struggled to hold back the waves of pain.
Cybill roared an ear-splitting shriek that shook the tunne
l, an awful combination of warping metal and screaming voices. I clamped my hands over my ears in an attempt to close out the sound. Rocks rained down from above. She flopped about, roaring all the while, and sent more sparks exploding upward. My hands had little effect. The noise was tremendous. I couldn't withdraw from it and it pulled me from my pain.
This was Black's scheme? This was his wife? His reason for killing so many innocent people? This...thing? My stomach churned in disgust.
Cybill roared a second time and I watched as cultists were enraptured by the sound. Madness overwhelmed them. Wide, stupid grins split their faces as they witnessed the birth of their profane goddess.
Fools.
More dust rained down from above us. I imagined the weight of the Sunk pressing downwards, crushing Cybill and drowning her followers. It was a lovely thought.
The tunneler loomed above the scene. Ancient and rusted, but still lodged in the tunnel's structure, its girders fighting to keep the sea at bay. Its beams barely holding. If it came down, if its support failed, it could collapse the entire tunnel and bring it all down on top of Cybill. Bury her under bedrock. It was rusted and broken and its engine had to be seized up and dead. It wouldn't start, but I imagined it'd be simple enough to destroy the rotted supports.
It was madness, but what choice did I have?
The creature was too big for my shotgun. I had no explosives. I was out of options. I could tell the wave of adrenaline my body was riding would soon subside. I was delirious from exhaustion and pain, but something pressed me forward.
I left the bonfire, left Cybill, left her prostrate followers, and followed Black into the stomach of the ancient machine.
TWENTY-FIVE
Behind me Cybill roared as she stirred. The sound of her thrashing grew more and more intense, regardless of how far away I moved from her. Below my feet, the floor of the ancient tunneler vibrated, kicking up dust. I hobbled along painfully, making my way deeper inside the machine. As I went, I knocked out girders and pylons, swinging my shotgun like a club, intent on bringing the tunneler's structure down. It wasn't going very fast. I needed a different plan…this would take forever.
The Stars Were Right Page 24
