“You tried to enslave otherworldy creatures to use as a weapon.” Holly spat. “Gee whiz, I’m shocked that didn’t work out.”
That offended him. “I was trying to save lives, young lady. My project was considered a psychological weapon rather than a destructive one. You have no idea how desperate we were. Nothing was off the table. My compatriots were a diverse group, ranging from the keenest scientific minds to the strangest masters of the occult. Compared to the other projects that were being contemplated at the time, mine was one of the least lethal. We were trying to use imaginary horrors to prevent real horrors. We had no choice. The things that the other side were dabbling in were just as terrible or worse. The alp itself, even after being augmented, is an unfocused, erratic—”
“Evil,” Holly supplied.
“Misunderstood being. Alps are not intelligent enough to be capable of esoteric concepts like good or evil. They are little more than cunning animals that feed on psychic distress. Ours were more capable, but still a far more pleasant alternative than dropping an Elder Thing on Berlin. We had a weapon, but no way to control it, no way to aim it. We needed a delivery system. But what if we could give the alp a controller? My research suggested that we could bond the creature to a human controller, sort of like how they bonded to a dreamer naturally while they fed, but a more complete, synergistic bonding. We found volunteers, young soldiers who fit certain psychological and intellectual criteria, and who were also physically and culturally capable of blending into the target populations. The first bonding procedures worked fine. Early testing demonstrated we would be able to break the connections and release the alps from their human hosts when the war was over. It seemed to be a smashing success, only we didn’t realize what would happen when Project Thirteen went off the rails.”
“No kidding.”
Mosh heard a noise. Someone was trying the door. “They’ve found us.”
“They won’t do anything too fast. They’re worried about hurting their charge. I’m assuming PT’s pay will get docked if they kill him on accident. Keep going, Doc. How do we stop this super alp of yours?”
“The creature isn’t the problem. It is merely following its instincts, creating nightmares and feeding upon the resultant terror. The danger comes from its human host. One of our volunteers turned out to be something…special. He was our most promising subject, so we picked him to receive what seemed to be our most capable alp. When a creature was bonded to him, it unleashed some surprising side effects. What had previously been figments of the mind were given actual form. Nightmares became real. Physically real. They were small at first, but this sort of phenomenon was unprecedented. My team was delighted. The energy necessary to accomplish this feat was simply inconceivable. Our experiments had unleashed the unexpected.”
The rattling of the doorknob stopped. Mosh picked up one of the rifles. It was an unfamiliar, bulky, plastic thing, heavier than it looked, but the controls made sense. It had a safety, a trigger, charging handle, and mag release where expected. Auhangamea Pitt had taught him well, so Mosh knew he could fire it if he needed to, but it wasn’t the technical part of shooting someone that was troubling him. Somebody kicked the door hard, but it barely moved the shelf.
Holly raised her voice and shouted through the door. “If you use an explosive to breach…the shock’s liable to kill the old guy!” Then she went back to normal. “Let them chew on that for a minute. Please continue, Doc.”
Dr. Blish didn’t seem to notice the noise. It was as if telling the story he’d kept bottled up for so long was consuming all of his attention. “The sudden increase in the alp’s abilities was all due to the volunteer. He seemed like a normal enough young man, rather brave considering what he was willing to do for his country. However, as time went on, things became worse. The nightmare creations became far stronger and unexpectedly aggressive. Members of my team died. We tried to break the bond, but it wouldn’t work. This particular alp had either gained sentience, or some dark aspect of the human host’s personality had become imprinted on it. The immaterial being didn’t want to give up its new source of power, so it began to manipulate him, first physically, then mentally. He tried to keep it in check, but it eventually turned him against us. It was a hard decision, but we had no choice but to terminate the project.”
That’s a nice way to say they decided to murder the dude. “I thought you said you couldn’t kill him?”
“That was the problem. Anything capable of destroying the host would merely free the now intelligent, hyper-evolved alp. Though certainly no longer as powerful, freed from a physical anchor, it would be able to roam the world doing harm. The range of the nightmare effect was limited to within a few hundred meters of the host’s body. The unexpected physical changes caused by the bonding had rendered the host unaging, theoretically immortal, with many of the mutations that we see in advanced types of undead. Unmolested, there was no reason to believe that he wouldn’t live forever. So we did the next best thing we could. We rendered the host catatonic.”
“You couldn’t risk killing him, so you made him a vegetable, and buried him in a chemical weapons dump…” Holly whistled. “But now he’s back, and he’s pissed.”
“The idea was to leave him in stasis until we could find a cure,” Dr. Blish said, but then he looked away evasively. “You must understand, after Decision Week, almost all of the supernatural projects were scrapped, and the evidence was placed in storage. We were not allowed to look for a cure. The survivors of the research team had no choice but to move on with our lives. The decision was out of our hands.”
“I’m sure it was…” Holly muttered.
“I petitioned to reopen the study, but was denied. I am not the guilty party here.”
Mosh didn’t think they had time to debate the moral implications of mad science. “If we’re not supposed to kill him, what can we do?”
“Our safest solution is to convince him to go back to sleep, but good luck with that,” The doctor answered. “The behaviors being exhibited this time are different than before. It would seem that its physical form is capable of moving between planes now, Earth and the nightmare realm. Which is why the host body has seemingly been able to move so rapidly about in this world. I would assume that is where your casino has gone as well. It seems that the evolution of the symbiote has continued during their long stasis. There is no telling what their capabilities are now.”
“You keep talking about this host.” Holly picked up another one of the rifles and chamber-checked it. The door-kicking was making her nervous. “What’s his deal?”
“One of the other research teams had hypothesized the existence of this kind of rare individual…The mystics and occultists referred to them as children of special destiny, individuals who had been chosen by some higher power and given special gifts. At the time I thought that was nonsense, only now I must admit there really is something to it. We know there are other worlds, other realities, that infringe upon our own. These are the source of some of the creatures that end up here. Sometimes there is a rare individual inexorably connected to one of these other realms. It is as if they are chosen to accomplish something, sometimes good, sometimes evil, or even completely incomprehensible. They exhibit strange abilities, even connections to tap into these other unknown realms. Intrusions by other worlds seem to create these specimens. Sometimes the abilities are passed down genetically, though they rarely manifest, but when they do, remarkable things happen.”
Mosh and Holly exchanged a glance. “We know somebody that fits that description.”
“I strongly doubt it. The odds are astronomically against it.”
“Odds go out the window when my brother’s involved,” Mosh said. “Owen has collected some absolutely bizarre karmic baggage. He’s why I’m here. He’s one of the people trapped inside the Last Dragon.”
Dr. Blish’s mouth fell open but no sound came out. For a second Mosh thought that he’d simply died of shock. Then his mouth began to move aga
in, like a fish out of water gasping. Finally he was able to get the words out. “No, no, no. Another one of them? And he’s on the other side? This is terrible. Absolutely terrible. Do you have any idea what this means?”
“No.” The door was kicked again. There was still no give. Mosh was just glad they had a hostage so they couldn’t just start shooting through the walls. “Not really.”
“In the intervening years we have learned from other incidents involving the bonding of humans to spirit entities from other planes. Stricken has procured some ancient weapons that he believes will not only destroy the host, but at the same time permanently banish the alp back to its home…But if the host is destroyed, and there is another one of these chosen vessels present in its home realm…”
“We’d be banishing it to someplace where it could just take over another body…”
“And doubtlessly continue to travel between our worlds, wrecking havoc on us all,” Blish finished for her.
“Oh, hell no. This nightmare thing is not going to possess my brother.” Mosh looked to Holly. “Is that possible?” She shrugged. Holly had no idea either. “No way, man.”
Mordechai’s voice came into his head for the last time. “Thank you, boy. We know enough now. The Champion will be warned. Now you must prepare yourself. You must face your fear.”
The lights flickered. The banging against the door ceased. Mosh realized that Holly’s breath was visible as steam. A tingle of dread rolled down his spine. He began to shiver uncontrollably.
“It’s too late.” Dr. Blish sounded utterly defeated. “He’s found me.”
“Crap. He’s here!” Holly sprang into action. She grabbed onto the shelf that was keeping out Paranormal Tactical and began pulling it aside. “Help me, Mosh!” Potentially getting shot by angry Hunters, but maybe having help, sounded a lot nicer than being stuck inside with the nightmare monster. The metal of the shelf was cold to the touch.
The lights died.
There was a new presence in the storage room with them. Mosh could feel it, only a few feet away, standing dark and cold over the wheelchair that held the cowering scientist.
I remember you…The words pounded their way into Mosh’s thoughts.
“I’m sorry.” The doctor’s voice cracked. “I’m so sorry for what we did to you, Marcus.”
It’s too late for apologies.
Mosh screamed as the world was swept away.
Chapter 21
Mosh!
I was Owen Zastava Pitt again.
It all hit me in fast succession, leaving me with what felt like the worst ice-cream headache ever. “Oh, man.”
Sam Haven took his ghostly hand away from my head. “Yeah, that looks like it really hurts. But soak that shit up quick. I need you motivated. This is a job for the living. And since you’re the guy with all the connections between worlds, you got the job. Congratulations. That’s getting to be a habit with you. All us dead Hunters have nicknamed you Short Straw. Believe it or not, we mean it in the nicest way possible.”
I was still being overwhelmed with information, and as it came grinding to an end, I realized with a shock that my brother was in danger. “The Nachtmar’s got Mosh!”
“Among others. It’s spreading out into Vegas, looking for minds to raid. So you need to hurry up and waste it before it’s too late.”
“How—”
Sam pointed up like I had seconds before.
“God will smite him?”
Sam laughed at me. “I was pointing at the roof. Get to the chopper. Power’s out. You up to twenty flights of stairs?”
My wife was up there. Damn right I could take the stairs. “Ankle’s buggered, but I can do it.”
“Ace-wrap that fucker and walk it off,” Sam ordered like any good SEAL would. “This casino is drifting in dreamland, but you can still fly out. You’ll need to piss the monster off good so it’ll chase after you, but knowing you, that shouldn’t be a problem. Mordechai pulled some strings and will have what you need waiting. He’s sort of your guardian angel. Turns out there’s a lot invested in you, Z, so when it comes to meddling in your particular business, we get a little more leeway. You’ll find backup on the way. Me and the boys need to go waste some demons. We’ll hold them off as long as we can. Tell Milo I said hi, and I’m really honored he named his kid after me. That was mighty cool of him.”
I could see through Sam. “Wait—”
But then Sam Haven simply vanished as if he’d never even been there at all.
My radio had only been turned back on for a few seconds when I received, “Was that Sam?” from Julie. “I mean, visibility is garbage and the wind keeps moving the fog around, and it took me a while to find you in all the debris, but…Sam?”
“Yeah.” I was limping along as fast as possible, Abomination in hand, just waiting for something to pop out of the fog. “It was Sam.”
“But Sam’s gone.”
“We got reinforcements.”
There was a pause as Julie took a deep breath. “I thought I’d lost you for a minute there. I…”
“Me too.”
The rest went without saying. Julie didn’t have time to get emotional. This was business. “Hang on. This stuff is pissing me off. I’m switching rifles…Milo and Nelson got most of the innocents away from the breech. Earl’s got nearly everyone boarded up on the main floor. They’re holding the demons in the lobby. There were a few other teams out, but there’s nobody close to you.”
“Tell Skippy to warm up the chopper. I’m on my way to meet you. I’ve got a plan.”
I’d sliced my forehead open, but my armor had kept me from getting cut in too many places. However, I’d whacked myself really hard in several spots during the ride down. I’d pulled muscles and wouldn’t have been surprised if there were a few bones cracked. There wasn’t any part of me that wasn’t hurting, but there weren’t any bones sticking out and nothing was squirting blood, so I could do this. It was weird, though, I felt stronger than I probably should have. Either I was in shock and working through the pain or there had been something else to Sam’s help than just the memories from my brother.
Hang in there, Mosh. I’m coming.
“Hold still,” Julie ordered. I froze in place. All I could see around me was the wretched churning fog. There was a solid THWACK ten feet in front of me. Something hit the ground. “Got it. You can keep going now.”
I found the body of one of the warrior demons just ahead. Julie had shot it through the vulnerable juncture of neck to body. Steaming goo had sprayed everywhere. It was still twitching as I went around it. “You on thermal?”
“Sure am. Told you I was switching rifles. When the fog rolls around it’s the only way I can see.” Anything that emitted body heat would positively glow in this cold mess, and these demons always seemed feverishly hot. “The wind keeps changing, so this might get tricky. There’s an external stairwell to your left.” I couldn’t see a damn thing. “Keep turning. Turning…Okay. Head that way. I’ll cover you. The garden’s crawling with monsters.”
I set out with a sort of hopping, hobbling jog. The demons were shrieking and clicking at each other. There was a trumpetlike bellow from one of the big acid throwers. “They know you’re there. There’s more coming.” It took a moment for her bullet to arrive. THWACK. There was a gurgling noise as another creature choked to death on its own blood. THWACK. “Two down, but they’re surrounding you. Hurry.”
Hurry was a relative term when all you could feel from one foot was lightning bolts whenever it touched ground, but I ran like everyone’s lives depended on it.
“Monsters on your right. Two. Don’t have a shot.”
I turned and lifted Abomination. The rapidly moving fog was so wet that rather than raining, water just accumulated out of the air and soaked you. Gusts were like being smacked with a damp towel. The water picked up the blood and ran off me in pink rivulets. The mist swirled. I was ready. The instant a bit of orange broke the fog I shot it to death. Its co
mpanion pushed by, only to have a pile of silver rip through its thorax, spilling it in a wet heap.
“Clear. There was a tree in the way. Didn’t have an angle.” THWACK. “That time I did.” Julie was an absolutely lethal shot. “Hit the deck!” I did exactly as she said, diving forward and landing on the soft grass. Several spines passed through the air where I’d been standing. There was a series of loud impacts as Julie opened up on them. “They’re down. Move.”
I got up and ran. Blood kept running into my eyes. It turned the fog red, then pink as I blinked it away, then clear. Repeat every few seconds. I vaulted a low iron fence. Hitting the ground hurt so bad it nearly made my legs buckle. The wall of the hotel came into view. I was right under Julie. She must not have realized she was still transmitting. “Edward, hold onto my belt. I’ve got to lean over to see. Don’t let me fall.” I had a sudden vision of Julie toppling over the edge of a twenty-story building while trying to keep the demons off my back. There was a sudden impact off to the side and my heart jumped into my throat, but it was only another monster catching a .308 round right through the top of its bulbous skull. “Door should be straight ahead of you. Two dozen monsters coming your way.”
There was the door. I tried the handle but it was locked. It was a fire exit. Of course it was locked. It opened outward so I couldn’t kick it. I didn’t have any breaching rounds, so being really hopeful that I wouldn’t kill myself with a ricochet, I stuck Abomination’s muzzle next to the frame and blasted the lock into shrapnel. There was enough metal still engaged that it still wouldn’t open. So I overreacted and jerked the trigger twice more. That did the trick, but a chunk of metal ripped a tear in my armored sleeve and drew more blood. The movies always made it look so easy.
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