by Michael Todd
She moved back, knowing exactly what that was. They were several more dead Atlanteans, and they had been killed pretty ruthlessly. She swallowed hard and took another look at them, noticing they had all been killed by some sort of blade. It was obvious that this was the trail pointing to Wilson and Red. “I’m sorry you had to die for this.”
Katie took back off and looped around, flying back the way she’d come. As she soared down the tunnel, she could see Juntto standing at the end with his arms crossed. She slowed her flight and landed carefully on the soft ground. Juntto stared at her with an angry face. Katie looked around and then back at Juntto. “Why are you giving me the fucking stink-eye? Seriously, it’s fucking creepy. I’m sorry you don’t have wings. Actually, I’m not sorry. Those would be enormous. You would cause serious damage to the city.”
Juntto snarled. “I’m more than pissed right now.”
Katie furrowed her brow. “Why? What happened? You were here by yourself.”
Juntto pointed his big finger at her. “That’s exactly freaking right. Warriors shouldn’t split up like that. That is how people die in horror movies.”
Pandora landed hard next to them, her face stern. Katie grimaced, looking at the slime on her. “What in the fuck?”
Pandora looked around, ignoring her comment. “Does anyone else hear that?”
Katie lifted an eyebrow. “Uh, I don’t hear anything.”
Juntto shook his head grumpily. “All I heard was the sound of silence because I was left all alone.”
Pandora stared down the tunnel. “Huh.”
Katie tilted her head to the side. “You okay?”
Pandora lifted her eyebrows. “Oh, yeah. I’m fine. Must have been a crab or something that I heard. But as far as that direction? You don’t want to go that way. That way is literally just poop. The amant del cosi didn’t give us good directions.”
Katie blinked. “The what?”
Pandora stared at her. “The neef liefhebber. Cugino amante. The Serkku rakastaja.”
Juntto chuckled. “I know that one. Lover of cousins.”
Pandora nodded, walking forward. “Yeah, that’s what I said. Cousin-fuckers.”
Katie shook her head, still walking forward. They made their way down the left tunnel with Katie watching Pandora closely. She knew something was wrong, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.
17
General Brushwood stood in one of the small lounges for officers on the naval base, staring at the coffee as it trickled into the carafe. He was exhausted but determined to stay lucid until everything had been discovered. He couldn’t just write Katie and the team off; he knew better than that. When the coffee was done brewing, he grabbed a mug and poured himself a cup. He brought it to his lips and took a deep breath of its aroma. It wasn’t his expensive coffee, but at that point, anything would do.
He stared at the powdered creamer for a moment and shook his head. “Black coffee it is.”
He made his way back to the sonar room and walked inside. There were several people standing with the rear admiral looking over printed data. He waved the general over. “We are detecting seismic activity all over the world right now. That never happens, not all over the world at once. It’s usually specific to one area, and the rings go out until it’s no longer detectable. This, though? It’s showing it everywhere.”
The general took the sheet and looked down at it. Sure enough, there was seismic activity being reported from all over the world all at the same time. The rear admiral pointed to the numbers. “It’s not much. I mean, probably no one can feel it. We aren’t feeling it here, but that was the first alert I got. Then I looked at the maps, and they were all reporting. It’s constant. We know it’s not some sort of tectonic shift since that would be strong in several areas and weak in others. They would also hit and dissipate. This is steady.”
The general rubbed his face. “Is that Baylahn?”
The rear admiral looked at the numbers, a larger set coming from a vast area in the Atlantic Ocean. “I can’t be certain about that. We don’t have any view of the Leviathan, and without it, I would just be guessing. I mean, obviously, it’s a theory, considering we are talking about it.”
The general groaned. “And I thought Tiamat was big. Christ, this thing is like seven Godzillas. It’s like sticking a continent deep below in the Atlantic Ocean, only it’s a living, breathing animal or alien. Whatever you want to call it. When you said big, I really was expecting something Tiamat’s size.”
The rear admiral smiled, taking the papers. “Tiamat would look like a miniature pony next to this thing. I wonder what he looks like. A giant snake or eel? A shark with legs? A person, maybe? This is really crazy stuff.”
He walked with the general back to his seat in the back. “While we have a few minutes. I thought maybe we could discuss what to do with the other Leviathans.”
The general took a sip of his coffee. “Mmm, yeah, I guess we need to address that before it backfires on us. We will need to set up teams to hunt these things down.”
The rear admiral nodded. “True. I guess it’s hard to think about, with the main team lost out there with the biggest of the Leviathans.”
The general shook his head. “We can’t do anything about that right now. The Leviathans pose a real threat to us. We have been living on this planet all these years, and there have been killer beasts right under our noses. Having a nice slumber and waiting for the signal to come out and completely destroy us. Well, I’m not going to stand by and let that happen. I want to get the jump on them. I’m tired of surprises. They should really be classified as weapons of mass destruction, after all. They have the ability to wipe out cities, states, even continents.”
The rear admiral completely agreed. “These things need to be classified, and then they need to be destroyed. Unless there is some magical difference in how they think, like your Frost Giant, I think it’s too dangerous to keep them alive here on this planet. We are just asking for a disaster.”
The general reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone. “I agree. Excuse me one minute.”
He answered the phone not looking at who was calling. “This is Brushwood.”
Timothy was glad to hear someone’s voice. “General, it’s Timothy. I wanted you to know that our base is back up. We got hit by an EMP demon who wiped out everything electronic. We were able to pull back out of it and kill all the demons, but we couldn’t tell anyone at the time what was going on.”
The general rubbed his face. “Jesus. What about the other forts?”
Timothy paused. “Um, yeah. We got hold of two of them and let them know what was going on. But…”
The General’s eyes opened. “But what?”
Timothy sighed. “But Korbin’s fort in Taiwan is not on the radar, and nobody can get through to them. They are in the dark right now. Even my system isn’t picking up anything in their area.”
The general swallowed hard. “Thank you, Timothy. Good work out there. I will try Korbin as well. Call me as soon as you hear anything from them.”
“You do the same, “Timothy replied.
Brushwood hung up and stared down at his phone for a moment. It was not good at all if Taiwan was under attack. And by something they had never faced before. An EMP demon. He scrolled through and dialed Korbin’s cell, putting the phone to his ear. “We are sorry, but this number is unavailable at this time.”
He brought the phone down and stared into the comm room. “That’s not good at all.”
Calvin roared as he grabbed a demon by the body and pulled its head off, letting it turn to dust in his hands. His muscles flexed hard, and the veins popped out on his neck and arms. He was raging through the demons, ripping them apart and slicing them to pieces with his short sword. Piles of ash indicated his path, a trail of revenge that led all the way back to the wall of the fort.
He took his short sword back out and jumped, slashing it down through a demon. The blade cut straight through its sk
ull and came out its balls. The demon groaned and split in half, its body becoming dust. Calvin had been human for so long at that point he forgot what it was like having a demon inside of him. The demon was terrified, and it was giving him everything it could. Calvin was a maniac out there, taking down more demons than the entirety of the military had taken down by then.
Calvin turned to his right and stared at a large demon. You got me on this?
His demon sighed. Yeah, sure. Why not? He’s an asshole too, so rip his fucking arms off and shove them up his ass.
Calvin smirked. Your wish is my command.
He ran across the field and dove head first, tackling the demon to the ground. He flipped over on top of it and grabbed its arms, ripping them from their sockets. He looked down at the demon and raised his eyebrows. “Sorry, this was a request from a friend.”
He turned it over, shoving the demon’s arms right up his ass. He pushed so hard they ripped through its body and out the top of its head. Calvin looked down at a cut on his arm and watched as it healed in front of his eyes. He was stronger, faster, and healing quicker than he ever had before. It was the best he had felt in a very long time.
Calvin jumped up as the demon turned to dust, releasing his pent-up aggression on three demons snarling over a corpse. He ripped their heads off and slammed their bodies to the ground. As the beasts burst into ash, he looked up at the gate. Korbin and his remaining two recruits were regrouping. Calvin nodded; that was exactly what he wanted to see happen. He wanted to give the other guys the chance to fight back.
He turned and ran out into the field, smashing into as many demons as he could. They were falling at his feet, their bodies twisted and mangled. Calvin was covered in ash and demon blood, but he wasn’t even breathing heavy. “Now, where do I find the leader of this shitstorm?”
Mania stood at the back laughing loudly as she watched the demons tearing through the fort. Her eyes drifted across the field, completely missing Calvin pulverizing her demons. A gunshot rang out, echoing across the green. Her eyes shifted, finding Calvin amongst a pile of ash, his gun pointed straight at her. She went to step angrily forward when one of her crows squealed and fell from the sky at her feet.
Her eyes widened and she bent, picking it up. “Oh. No. Oh. My sweet crow. What has he done?”
Angrily she held the crow as it turned to ash. She stood and clenched her fists tightly at her sides. “Who is this disgusting piece-of-shit human? You killed my precious crow. The father of the crows. The maker. You will pay for this with your insignificant life.”
Calvin smirked and pulled a dagger from his waistband, then reared back and threw it hard. As if it were slow motion, Mania watched the knife fly through the air, slashing through the skin on her arm. She groaned and bent over, grabbing her arm tight. Blood seeped through her fingers and ran down to her hand. She looked up, her anger turning to fear. She backed up as Calvin took off toward her, running at full speed. His eyes flashed bright red, and she sprinted for the portal.
She leapt forward just before he could grab her, diving through the portal back to hell. She swung her hand to the side, trying to close the portal, but she was too shaken up. She waited for a moment, sure that the demon-infected human would come through, but there was nothing. Slowly she put her bloody hand down on the molten volcanic rock and stood up, blood dripping from her fingertips.
Baal and Beelzebub looked at each other, surprised to see her. Baal held back a smile at the look of anguish on her face. “Are you all right?”
She seethed, whipping her arm around. “Do I look all right? A Damned did this after he killed my precious crow. All the others dissolved at his death. He was their father.”
Baal lifted an eyebrow. “But wait, aren’t you leading the battle with your whip? You can’t just abandon the battle because of this.”
Mania breathed heavily, staring at him in anger. “I’m supposed to be the one hurting them, not the other way around! They actually cut me! And I don’t know why, but I can feel it through my entire body. It’s like fire moving through my veins, and not the good kind.”
Baal crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, yeah. The humans use that special metal. It really fucking sucks. We’ve been saying that for years. I’m surprised it affected you since you aren’t a demon, but I guess evil is evil.”
Katie and Juntto walked side by side, stepping over fallen columns and dilapidated ruins. The stone crumbled beneath their feet. Pandora whistled as she followed them, looking around at all the half-fallen statues. They had been walking through ruins for what seemed like hours and hadn’t found any more clues to where Wilson was. Katie wanted to move faster, but she knew they had to go at a steady pace or one of them would get hurt. If she had her way, she would be flying through there, but Juntto had no wings.
Katie stopped and rolled her head from side to side. “How did they get through here so fast?”
Pandora giggled. “Big Red probably carried Wilson through here. Cradled his itty-bitty body in her muscled arms.”
Katie laughed and moved forward. They stepped over a pile of stones when suddenly stone clamps came up through the floor and locked over their feet. Katie’s eyes grew wide and Juntto growled loudly, reaching down and pulling on the clamps. It was a trap; an ancient one, not one set by Wilson. Katie twisted and turned, trying to break free, but the more she moved, the tighter they got. Juntto squatted and pulled hard on them, holding his breath as he yanked. His fingers slipped and he fell back, landing on his butt.
Katie shook her head. “What the fuck? We’re trapped. Who puts a fucking booby trap in the middle of a ruined ancient city? These goddamned Atlanteans are maniacs. What were they expecting, someone to come in through Baylahn’s ass and attack from the opposite fucking direction? Is that even possible?”
Juntto reached over and grabbed a large rock with both hands. He lifted it over his head and pounded it against the clamps. Over and over he smashed the rock into the clamps, but they didn’t even scratch. He lifted the stone again, but this time when it came back down, it shattered into hundreds of pieces in his hands.
Katie put her hand on his shoulder. “It’s no use. I think this is one thing you aren’t strong enough for. These clamps are out-of-this-world tough.”
Juntto stood and looked at the sword on her back. “What about that? It was forged by God. It should be able to slice through anything that he created, right?”
Katie unsheathed her sword and held it in front of her. “It’s worth a shot.”
Juntto put his hand on hers. “Just don’t cut your foot off.”
Katie swallowed hard and grimaced as she took a whack at the clamps. The sword hit the rock and clanged loudly, shaking in Katie’s hands. She lifted it back up and looked down at the stone. “Fuck. It’s didn’t even leave a mark on that shit.”
Katie glanced over her shoulder to see if Pandora had found a way out. “Are you… Wait, you aren’t clamped.”
Pandora smiled and flapped her wings. “No, ma’am. I am not clamped. I don’t know why, but I had this feeling to keep my wings out. When I saw the clamps coming, I flapped up in the air.”
Katie gave her a death stare. “And you couldn’t have shared that gut feeling with Juntto or me? You let us get caught?”
Pandora shrugged. “You’re an angel too. Maybe you should listen to your gut.”
Katie shrugged. “I’m too busy listening to Baylahn’s.”
Pandora flew in front of them, landing on a large boulder. She looked around, finding the same kind of holes in the ground throughout. “It’s obviously a trap. Only angels are supposed to get this far, I think.”
Juntto scratched his head. “If that’s true, how the hell did Wilson get out of here? We know for damn sure he is not an angel of any kind.”
Katie looked around, twisting her body from side to side, but there was no sign of him anywhere. “I don’t know. Maybe Red didn’t get caught, or vice versa.”
Juntto pointed at the g
round. “Or maybe not. Look, there on the ground.”
Pandora looked down at blood spots all over the floor. She followed them over the piles of debris and up the wall to her right. There were streaks and bloody handprints all the way up. “He must have scaled the wall. Pretty impressive.”
She followed the trail all the way to the top, finding a lever with a bloody handprint. “Oh, hey. Wilson led us to a release lever. Stupid bastard.”
Katie lifted her eyebrow. “Great. Do you think you could pull it and get us the hell out of these clamps?”
Pandora smirked. “Uh, yeah. Sorry.”
She gripped the lever with both hands, pulling hard. The lever slowly lowered and the clamps sank back into the stone. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and slowly went back down to her companions. “He must have hung from that bitch. It was really hard to pull.”
Katie instantly pulled her wings out and shook her head, rubbing both of her feet. “Juntto, stick to the large piles of debris. Don’t step on the ground. I seriously don’t know how Wilson did it.”
Pandora shrugged as she flew along. “He didn’t come away unscathed.”
Katie shook her head. “No, he didn’t. And I hope whatever injury he acquired is slowing him down. At this rate, we’ll never catch him. He must have had a really good head start on us.”
Juntto hopped over to another pile, and they made their way to the archway and back into Baylahn’s guts. “Couldn’t be too big. He killed people hours before we got to Atlantis.”
Katie nodded, landing on the soft tissue. “True. Come on, things are getting dangerous in here.”
18
Mania stomped around the lava stones, using magic to heal her arm. She wasn’t as strong as the demons; the magic only stopped the bleeding. She groaned loudly as she looked down at the gash. Baal and Beelzebub stayed put, waiting for her to decide what to do next.