Sprawling clumsily across the floor with Amanda howling beneath him, Isaiah twisted to rip the katana from its sheath as he simultaneously hurled the sheath aside. Even in the moment Isaiah knew he’d never need the sheath again.
This creature was much larger than the one they’d already killed. It was at least ten feet tall and as wide as the door itself and was armored in what resembled black iron. It had a thick helmet and breastplate with hulking forearm bosses and greaves covering both shins.
With a glance at Margaret, it bent forward roaring.
“You’ve come!” bellowed Francois. “I told the fools that you would come!”
Suddenly it looked to the side to focus on Francois chained to his chair gazing up with the purest expression of worship. And as Francois opened his mouth to speak again, the beast casually reached down to wrap a gigantic hand around the director’s head. Then it closed the hand into a fist, liquifying Francois’s skull.
With a shout Roy unloaded to throw thirty rounds directly into its chest and it didn’t even turn its head into the attack. Rather, it lifted its face again, higher, and seemed to study the screens aligning the wall before it stalked forward like a colossus risen from some age-old throne of granite.
Isaiah leaped aside and swung the katana to hit it solidly in the knee and the beast staggered a half-step before it roared again and struck down toward Isaiah, but Isaiah had anticipated that and had already flung himself beyond its reach, rolling across the floor as Roy shouted, “Grenade!”
Isaiah took an extra tenth of a second to see Margaret cleanly leap a high computer console and Amanda fling herself behind a wooden desk before he ducked, too.
Isaiah didn’t know where the grenade impacted the beast, but he knew it struck true because, when he looked up, he saw the creature staggering backward, its armored chest on fire with flames that flowed like white water over its blue-black face.
Finally it turned into Roy and screamed.
The Delta commander raised his rifle. “Grenade!”
“Grenade!” shouted Tanto.
There was no decision to make; Isaiah saw it bleeding from the knee where the katana had sliced deeply through its leg despite how substantial it had become. And the grenades were sending splinters of armor spiraling like knives through the air.
This was the last stand.
Isaiah ducked as the dual explosions of the grenades laced the room with white-hot shrapnel that cut through steel and flesh alike. Then he raised his face in time to see the beast recovering like a boxer trying to rise from a colossal blow; it was off-balance and staggered before it slammed a fist into the wall. As it raised its face to focus fully on Roy, Isaiah claimed the first clear view of its countenance.
It looked like Cro-Magnon man would have looked like if he had been born from a union of a gorilla and a demon; its brow was broad and low; its eyes were utter black holes with not even the faintest trace of light reflected in their obsidian core; its chin was square and blocked to match the rest of its body lending it the image of a gargantuan beast that ruled by strength and strength alone. And its teeth were not fanged but square and thick to give it, on the whole, the impression of pure brute strength.
If God had meant to send forth a creature of nothing but main strength, he could not have created a more perfect vessel.
“Go!” cried Roy. “Get to the ATLAS!”
Isaiah knew he still held the katana as he scrambled across the floor and grabbed Amanda’s hand, hauling her out the door. Then they ran to the stairway that led downward to the ATLAS. Isaiah only hoped someone would still be alive when they reached it because the gateway could only be opened from the Observation Room.
More explosions sounded in the corridor.
Then the roar of an unearthly beast chasing them …
As the ATLAS opened …
***
As Isaiah, dragging Amanda, reached the dais beneath the ATLAS, he spun in place at a sudden silence. It descended from the Observation Room like a flood of horror. Then a voice cried, “Get in the damn machine!”
Isaiah shoved Amanda before him and hurled himself into the chamber scrambling over the cylindrical hydrogen weapon as he heard the beast erupt into the collider corridor and it began to climb the stairs to the ATLAS. Then the entire chamber exploded in a blue light that engulfed them both with electric tendrils stretching straight as a highway toward an unending blue-green sheen …
Isaiah turned his gaze to see the bestial image poised in the door of the ATLAS.
It roared as everything was engulfed in …
Light.
***
Where they were going took more than a few moments because Isaiah was aware of traveling along a long blue ribbon of green and blue light that sliced through bands of what seemed like stars and the journey continued and continued and continued until …
They stopped.
Isaiah took a moment to see a white orb suspended behind them and he twisted to grab Amanda who was somehow floating face down like someone drowning in an invisible flood. He violently twisted her upright as Amanda awoke with a start and stared first at him and then at the azure infinity surrounding them.
“Oh, shit!” Amanda exclaimed. “Okay! I’ve seen it! Make us proud! I’m outta here!”
“You can’t go back yet!” said Isaiah. “That thing was almost inside the ATLAS! I have to make sure it’s safe.”
Blinking rapidly, Amanda gasped, “Is this the Big Bang?”
“I don’t think so,” said Isaiah. He pulled the radio from his coat. “Roy! Margaret! Do you read me?”
A moment.
Static.
“I’ve got you!” came Margaret’s voice. “Are both of you okay?”
“Yes!” Isaiah answered firmly as he continued to spin, glaring across every blue-black, crimson, endless landscape. “I don’t know where we’re at but we’re somewhere! Has that thing left the ATLAS? Can I send Amanda back?”
“We’re not sure! We can’t see it! Keep her there another minute!”
Isaiah suddenly realized they weren’t floating; rather, they were standing on a substance that seemed like some kind of vaporous white firmament. He instinctively knelt, feeling through the faint sheen that half-covered his feet.
His hand rose, lifting what merely seemed like … white sand. He lifted it to his face and sensed nothing familiar. It wasn’t a beach. It wasn’t the remnants of an ancient volcano. It was simply … void … as if it existed only for itself.
“Huh,” Isaiah grunted and saw the hydrogen bomb resting beside his right leg; he didn’t straighten as his brow hardened. “Well, we’re standing on something so that means we’re … lost in space.”
“Oh, no,” Amanda moaned, a hand on her forehead. “Margaret’s math sucks.” Then, slowly, she lifted her face and whispered, “Isaiah? What is that?”
Isaiah searched.
Where the sky had been crimson and azure, it was quickly blackening in a single consuming thundercloud that cast the abyss into the deepest melancholy shadow Isaiah had ever seen or imagined. At once the landscape vanished and the white firmament was transformed like a grave from morning to midnight and the air within their lungs and upon their skin seemed to solidify with a darkness that could be felt.
Isaiah’s grip tightened on Amanda’s hand.
“Don’t move,” he said.
“I thought I was supposed to go back.”
Isaiah glanced to see the snow-white portal increasingly surrounded by a vicious red ring; the ring had tentacles like those of an enraged serpent and they were lashing out to strike mist from this mysterious ground.
Anything they hit would be killed.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea yet,” he said.
Strangely Isaiah could still clearly see Amanda for it seemed they stood within an arena of light ef
fortlessly defying this deepest canyon of black.
“What is this place?” Amanda whispered. “Isaiah?”
“He’s here,” said Isaiah.
“What?” Amanda turned her face, searching. “What is here?”
A black silhouette appeared from the gloom as if taking substance from the night. It stood before them, a single forearm behind its back, like a gentleman, and it was very obviously a man. And for a moment no one moved or spoke.
“Whom do you seek?” asked the figure.
“Oh, my God,” croaked Amanda. “It talks.”
Isaiah studied the form as he realized that no king would go himself to meet anything less than another king and so he answered, “I seek no one. I’ve brought you a gift.”
The silhouette’s face did not move but a voice did distinctly emanate from within it. “We know of your gift.” It laughed. “Fire to destroy fire. How piquant.”
“A demon with a sense of humor,” Isaiah muttered. “How piquant.” He glanced to confirm the bomb was still near as he added, “I’m not here to talk to a slave.”
“Everything you believe is wrong,” it said, slowly approaching. “These many dimensions were not created by what you understand to be God. They were created by a being that was very much like you when he began so many billions of years ago—as you understand years. But your species is not advanced enough, yet, to comprehend the infinite vastness and measureless age of the cosmos. Nor do you have need of your weapons. You have no enemies here.”
There was something about the words that left Isaiah confused. Was it saying that God did not exist and this was eternity? That this was man’s destiny? Is this the world that the human soul eventually comes to after so many resurrections and rebirths and reincarnations? Was life truly an unending, evolutionary ladder to this place? Or was a man indeed fated to live and die once?
Cautiously Isaiah asked, “All right. Where’s your master?”
“He is here.” It lifted an arm. “Speak, and he will answer.”
Isaiah glanced above, beyond.
“But he won’t reveal himself?”
“Isaiah?” Amanda stated hesitantly. “Look …”
Barely turning his head, Isaiah saw the object of her concern; the spherical gateway behind them was now violently enclosed by the crimson holocaust that had encircled it as if to destroy it. But the sphere somehow endured as Isaiah again focused on the silhouette.
“You’re trying to destroy the portal,” he stated.
“You will not be returning to your world,” the silhouette said. “We will make you like us, knowing good and evil.”
“The first temptation,” said Isaiah. “So I guess this is the right place. Except you’ve already used temptation and it’s not going to work again. So why is your master afraid? Has he not stood before God? What can man do to him?”
The figure said plainly, “Why would man do anything to us? We are your friends, and you have no enemies in this pasture, or any pasture. And you would be surprised at how many there are. So, no, you are not alone in the universe. You are simply one of many millions of life forms, and all of them are like you, and all of them are your friends.” He pointed to the hydrogen warhead. “Why would you bring a weapon to the house of a friend? Here, we are all priests. We are all perfect. We are all free.”
“Only God is free,” said Isaiah. “And you’re no priest.”
“Why do you say I am not a priest?”
“Any priest that worships himself is nothing but a fool.”
“But is that not what the God of your understanding holds? Is that not his highest commandment? Thou shalt honor the Lord thy God? Is that not the corrupted commandment of your deity?”
Isaiah grimaced, “I’m not a religious man. Never have been. But talking to you inspires me to believe in anything but you.”
“Now this is your home.”
“Let the woman return to her world.”
It laughed. “This is her world now.” It took another step forward. “What is done cannot be undone. No one can violate time as you have so arrogantly done and escape.” It scoffed, “Did you really think you and your pitiful weapon could remake creation?”
Isaiah took a step to his right, instinctively circling.
“So you can see into our world?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Can you interfere in our world?”
“When we find a suitable soul to possess.”
Isaiah nodded slowly, “So you have to use a human body to affect our world. That’s why you need the gateway. You can’t physically do it yourself. You can’t cross over without the portal.”
It began to circle counter to Isaiah as if preparing for battle. “You understand the power that fuels the universe and yet you do not understand yourselves. Your arrogance blinds you. That’s why it’s my favorite sin. There is no need to tempt the proud. Their doom is within them. Or haven’t you heard? Only the humble will see the face of God?”
If you know its name, you can control it …
But Isaiah knew it was useless to ask this creature’s name. It would never surrender its name unless it was defeated. And with that thought Isaiah used his right thumb to subtly unlock the katana from the scabbard but the scabbard was no longer there; he had flung it aside when he battled the creature in the Observation Room. Even then Isaiah had decided he’d never need it again. And he’d been right.
“Where are those you took from our world?” he asked.
It stretched out an arm.
Out of nowhere—Isaiah had not even glimpsed a movement in the dark—seven black silhouettes stood in single file. They were all similar in shape to this creature and it took Amanda only a moment to recognize the one who had been her sister.
Cynthia Deker was sheathed in a blood-black sheen as absent of light as the obsidian curve of her unblinking eyes. There was nothing human left within the image of a corpse that stood in that black funeral shroud.
Amanda cried out loud, “God! … Oh, no! Cynthia!”
Isaiah’s hand tightened on the hilt of the katana.
Whatever Cynthia had been on earth had been horrifically transfigured to duplicate the demonic shape of these denizens of Hell. Her eyes were utterly black spheres and her face was as expressionless as her military stance. And after Isaiah scanned her gaze to see if any thread of humanity or even life yet remained beneath the image of death, he saw nothing at all. Whatever they had transformed her into was subatomic.
Amanda stepped toward the messenger. “Damn you! What did you do to her?”
“Now she is like God,” it said coldly, “knowing both good and evil. She is free.”
“That isn’t freedom!” Amanda pointed and took several steps forward; Isaiah thought of grabbing her but didn’t. She deserved her rage. “That’s death! You killed her! You’re not a God! You’re a monster!”
Isaiah glimpsed Amanda’s hand clench in a fist. She took another step and then she stopped from instinct. Isaiah knew it had to be instinct because that was the only power that could have broken her tidal wave of rage.
Amanda grabbed Isaiah’s arm. “Let’s get out of here!”
“Foolish woman,” it laughed. “You are destroyed from lack of knowledge. You have always been destroyed from lack of knowledge. The truth is that Isaiah can take you nowhere. We can close the portal any moment we choose. Or send you anywhere we choose.”
Eyes narrowing, Isaiah asked, “You know me?”
It stated, “We listen to your world. We watch your world. So, yes, we know you by name.”
“But you can’t read our minds, can you?”
The pitch-black silhouette revealed nothing. Isaiah glanced at Amanda, at Cynthia’s heartbreaking form, and then again at the massive, muscular silhouette.
Measuring it.
Isaiah steppe
d further to the right, and forward, as he said, “I know you can’t be killed. But I’m going to take your pride because of what you’ve done to that innocent woman. I’m going to take your head … in your own temple … in your Holy of Holies … and before the throne of your master.”
The black density of the creature solidified.
“You will fail,” it said and lifted an arm.
Isaiah glanced over his shoulder to see the blazing red ring surrounding the portal triple in size and intensity like a circle of liquid lava closing in upon a single cell of living light that was the last hope of the universe.
The silhouette seemed unable to withhold anger from its tone, “The circle shall not endure. You will not return to warn your world.”
“They already know you’re coming,” frowned Isaiah. “But you won’t be coming today.”
The expressionless face turned hard on Isaiah.
“Why?” it asked.
“Because I’m in your world today,” said Isaiah. “And it will take you a long time to get up from what I’m gonna do to you.”
It’s face tilted forward. “How arrogant. Do you know who I am?”
Isaiah’s frown deepened as he swung the katana in a tight circle, settling on his grip. “Who you are doesn’t matter,” he said. “Shiva. Jinn. Lilith. Baal. Caesar. A thousand names for a thousand tombstones. Each equally meaningless.”
“What purpose will it serve to slaughter you?”
“I didn’t come here to talk,” said Isaiah. “This is your ground. You have every advantage, so I have an idea.” He lifted the katana. “You kill me.”
“Serve me and I will give you the world,” it said.
Amanda screamed, “You are afraid!”
It shook its head. “Fool.”
“Kill him!” she shouted.
Isaiah didn’t remove his eyes from the creature.
“Count on it.”
It growled, “I will destroy you.”
Isaiah took a slightly angled stance, the katana in his outstretched right hand.
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