by James Hunter
“We just got served a can of whoop-ass,” Cassius replied, his voice hazy and oddly hollow. “I’ll bring it up on instant replay.”
A ten by fifteen inch display window popped up in the right hand corner of my windshield. I watched, captivated, as Blobzilla surged up, its arms shooting out while its fingers elongated into hardened spears. Cassius slowed down the feed even further, allowing me to watch in mute horror as the bone-hard spears tore into my metal chest cavity. The picture faded, replaced by a view of the robotic chest plate: riddled with wide, puckered holes. Jagged edges of metal jutting up, wires poking out.
“I’ll mend,” Cassius said, voice weaker than before, “but we can’t afford to take another hit like that. And what I really mean is—I can’t afford to take another hit like that. It could kill me, Yancy. Wipe me out for keeps, you got that?”
“Yeah, I got it,” I said as I righted the gigantic metal suit. Cassius was risking everything for me here, and some part of me wanted to hold back for his sake, but I knew this was a winner take all bout. Unless we destroyed the Guttur Belua—and, more importantly, Achak—it’d be game over for both of us. Unfortunately, taking it easy just wasn’t an option.
The demon’s squishy back was now to me as it shambled away, an unstoppable juggernaut on a breakaway for its forest. It was a lead-footed beast, but once it got its considerable bulk into motion, I figured it’d be damn tough to stop him.
“Don’t let him get to his side of the brain-scape,” Cassius squawked over the comm. “He’ll be stronger there, tougher to beat. And I’ll have a helluva time maintaining this form on his side, especially with all this damage.”
“On it,” I called back. Blobzilla might’ve had momentum going for him, but I had speed. I sprinted, tearing down the center of Bourbon Street, gaining No Man’s Land in an instant. Still running, I bent low and scooped up a quarter-mile length of C-wire, the military upgrade to barbwire. I looped one coil around my bulky metal fist, a tail of jagged, gleaming metal snaking down like a wicked chain, dragging across the arid ground as my legs churned up a dust cloud. The creature was fifty feet out from the twisted forest when I lashed out. The length of razor-whip sailed through the air, biting into soft white flesh, snarls of wire digging deep grooves into mushy skin.
I skidded to a halt, planting my feet and grabbing the wire with both hands, jerking back, yanking the C-wire taut. The metal groaned and stretched, creaking as it fought to restrain the monstrous beast’s forward momentum. The weight dragged me a foot, ten feet, twenty—pulling like a record-worthy catfish struggling on the end of a fishing line. For a long beat I thought the C-wire would simply break, snap under the strain. But the C-wire didn’t exist, I reminded myself. It was only an illusion of the mind. It wouldn’t break as long as my will held.
So I willed the crude whip to remain, commanded it to dig deeper into the gluttony-demon, to hold fast.
I gave another ferocious jerk, my robotic arms screeching from the pressure. The beast teetered for a tense moment before finally collapsing. He crashed to the ground, the C-wire wrapping and tangling around his arms, neck, and torso. His massive arms and legs struggled to free themselves, which only further entangled his limbs.
Now was my chance. I dropped the length of whip, took three laborious steps, and launched myself high into the air, soaring two hundred feet or more like a rocket bound for the stratosphere, clearing the thrashing beast and landing right on the edge of his brain-scape. The creature hollered in hapless fury—more wire from the demilitarized zone latched into his gooey flesh with every passing second, mooring the creature to the deck.
I ignored him, focusing instead on the diseased redwood towering at the center of the forest. In my giant, metal form it took me only seconds to shoulder my way past the other trees and reach the behemoth, the seat of the Wendigo’s power. Even though I now stood sixty feet tall, the Great Tree loomed over me, but that didn’t matter. It was weak, sick, dying.
I brought my hands together in a mighty clap, envisioning my own Vis-wrought blade—azure-blue and delicate as lace—then thinking to Voltron’s epic Blazing Sword. A thunderclap of displaced air echoed around me; when I pulled my hands apart, a bastardized version of my sword, now forty feet long, hung in my outstretched right hand, gleaming with spectral power.
I smiled, effortlessly sliding into hasso hidari—left foot forward, weight settled over my back leg, sword positioned on my right—and flowed into a hard hitting diagonal slash, kiri gaeshi. The blade sliced through the tree’s trunk, the spongy wood offering no more resistance than a placid pool of water.
The thrashing behind me ceased, and a low moan, like the bellow of a windstorm, rolled out from the felled beast lying on the ground.
The tree wobbled for a moment, trying to decide how it ought to fall. Before it could make up its mind, and crash into the forest, I dismissed my sword and swooped in, throwing my arms around the trunk, lifting it up in an awkward bear hug—my huge arms not even close to encircling the thing. With the massive log pulled tight to my chest, a terrible burden even for Cassius’s robotic form, I waddled back to the downed monstrosity. Its vacant eyes stared up at nothing as its ginormous barrel chest pulled in shallow breaths. I towered over the creature, feeling the slightest stab of pity as I looked down at the regal Achak trapped in the beast’s center.
I raised the tree trunk high, positioning it directly over the stomach prison holding the Bigfoot captive. Achak opened his eyes, just a crack, regarding me solemnly. “Tell her I’m sorry,” he grunted, the words a soft, tired hum, barely loud enough for me to catch. There was no need to specify who he meant—it could only be Winona. Then the Bigfoot closed his eyes and nodded. Just do it, the gesture said.
Something tickled at the back of my mind:
“You’re such a self-righteous hypocrite … You call us monsters and murderers? Yet what does that make you? How many sons have you murdered, Yancy Lazarus? Just because a creature isn’t human, doesn’t mean it isn’t someone’s son or daughter, mother or father. You would wave your blood soaked hands at us?” One of the sirens had said that. Maybe she was right. Maybe even monsters weren’t evil all the way down to the core. Maybe they deserved a bit of grace now and then, too.
Sadly, the only grace I had to offer Achak was a quick end.
I thrust the tremendous log down, putting every bit of muscle I had into it. The base of the trunk slammed into the demon’s flabby abdomen, obliterating Achak, who vanished beneath the tree’s base. The great redwood thudded into the dry ground with a the force of a bomb blast—white, pasty flesh oozed out on all sides like a cream-filled doughnut that’d been smashed against a sidewalk.
Quivers ran up from the earth, rocking through my metal legs, my arms shooting out as the pilot’s cab exploded around me in a blast of ruby-red light. I’d done it, I’d won. The thought lingered with me as I faded away from this surreal place—this brain-scape—my consciousness dropping back toward my body in a rush of black.
THIRTY-FIVE:
Screw You
My eyes popped open. Something hot and heavy pressed into me—an enormous weight bearing down on me, threatening to suffocate me. I pushed weakly at the weight, but the hairy white thing barely gave an inch. It took only a few panicked heartbeats to realize I was back in my body, and once more had access to the Vis. Its power was already trickling into me, forming the thin stream of will and spirit I’d woven for the binding ritual. I drew more strength, calling up bands of force and wind, conjuring an unseen column of power to pluck the body from atop of me.
The Wendigo flopped over onto his side, landing with a thump before rolling onto his back, arms splayed out, muzzle slack as he pulled in slow, rhythmic breaths. He wasn’t dead, but neither was he a threat. Not anymore. Our battle hadn’t been one of the body, but one of the soul and mind—the thing that remained was merely a bag of meat, devoid of anything more.
I shot my hand down, pulling the Taser prongs, still digging into my leg
, free before Doctor Hogg could deliver another round of electroshock therapy. Even that slight movement hurt like a bitch. The claw wounds in my chest screamed into my brain, crying for me to STOP MOVING, while my aching ribs and sternum damn near refused to allow me to move. Thankfully, there was enough adrenaline pumping into my system to override my body’s natural inclination to crap out at the worst possible moment.
I had no idea how long I’d been under in my battle with the Wendigo—half an hour maybe, but probably less. When things happened at the speed of thought, an event that might normally take hours could tick away in mere seconds. Precisely the reason your whole life can flash before your eyes in the moments before your death. But even with the Wendigo beaten, Doctor Hogg was still around here somewhere, and I wasn’t about to let him get a jump on me again.
I pushed myself upright with a tremendous groan, warily scanning the room even as I bent over and fished the tiara off the Wendigo’s head and propped it onto my own—wasn’t gonna leave without that little trinket. A flash of movement in my periphery caught my attention: I swiveled in time to find the roly-poly doctor slipping from the room via the front entryway, now missing its double doors.
I pulled my pistol, took a quick survey of my rounds—two left, more than enough for this shithead—and thumbed back the hammer with an audible click. “How’s about you just stop right there, bud. I’ve had a long, shitty couple of days, so I’d advise you not to piss me off, dicknoodle.”
He took another cautious step forward, before turning and cautiously raising his hands for the ceiling. His eyes were wide as baseballs.
“You don’t need to die,” I said, hardly bothering to sound enthusiastic about that option. “You’ve got answers I want, so that gives you a pass. But like I said, I’m having a shitty couple of days, so I’m not feeling overly generous. If you try anything. A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G. I’ll toss you over the balcony—cushion your fall enough so you will break your back, but won’t die—then turn you over to Chief Chankoowashtay and the rest of the Sasquatches. Bet they won’t treat you quite so gently.”
Something sharp and cold slid up against my throat. There was a shimmer in the air and suddenly James’s silver sword cane was sitting flush against my exposed neck. “I’m sorry it’s come to this, but I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, old sport,” James said, his voice devoid of cheer.
Holy shit. That asshole must’ve slipped in after Kong had given the all clear.
“You no-good, buddy-fucking, son of a bitch,” I growled, while calculating the odds of weaseling my way out of this mess. It took me all of two seconds to realize my chances against James in this situation were abysmal. Hell, even abysmal was a generous figure, considering how banged up I was. I had the tiara now, but even that wouldn’t do me much good since I didn’t know what its capabilities were.
“I have him secured, Mistress,” James said.
A ruffle of feathers filled the room as a black cloud swept in from the balcony: a murder of inky-dark crows fluttering in, swooping down around the doctor, encircling him in a whirlwind of sharp beaks, beady black eyes, and cruel talons. The birds molted as they flew, feathers dropping away, drifting downward before vanishing into curls of sooty smoke. It took only a few eyeblinks before the birds had vanished completely and the smoke had coalesced into a woman. Long blonde hair, resting on lovely pale shoulders poking out above an elegant dress, red as blood.
I couldn’t breathe, my body rebelling against me. Utter shock stole through me. Denial and sorrow battered at my mind with blunt fists…
Ailia. Or rather, the Morrigan, Irish goddess and general badass, who currently had possession of her body.
I’d been so blind. I replayed my first confrontation with the Wendigo. It’d been a troublesome crow who’d first given us away as I’d probed the tiara. And when we’d been preparing to break into the mill, there had been more crows—a small flock of the bastards tracking us. Then, Kong had mentioned a blonde-headed woman. How hadn’t I seen this coming? Idiot.
Just the crows should’ve been a dead giveaway. The Morrigan was the Irish War-Walker, the Chooser of the Slain, deciding who would live and who would die on the field of battle, drinking in the sorrow and chaos of the dying, indulging in the life force of the fallen. And crows were her creatures, psychopomps that would feast on the corpses of the slain before ferrying their souls to the afterlife, bringing them to judgment.
“Hello, Yancy,” she said, the words ringing out in Ailia’s smoky voice. A voice that conjured so many wonderful and painful memories, a voice which had always been quick to joke or laugh or sing. “It feels like an age since last we met.”
I swiveled the pistol toward her, not caring that James stood behind me with a sword to my throat. The gun trembled in my outstretched hand, bobbing as a small sob hitched in my bloodied chest.
She gracefully strolled forward, until she was feet away, then inches, drawing close enough to place her hand on the barrel and draw it in, pressing it snug against her forehead.
“Could you do it?” she purred. “You know it won’t kill me, won’t diminish my essence in the least. But it would end her.” She ran the back of a hand over her cheek. “She’s still in here, you know. Trapped deep inside. Starving a little more every day. Wasting away as I eat her memories and savor her life. Each morning I siphon off her power a spoonful at a time, like a good cup of tea. She’d probably thank you for doing it.”
The Morrigan was right, Ailia would want me to pull the trigger. Ailia was enslaved and locked away inside her own head. Trapped in a state far worse than Achak had been. I dropped the pistol away, tearing my eyes from her face, unable to look at her, unwilling to see her like this. Killing her was the right thing to do. The smart thing to do. But I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did it. It was selfish, but there was a small part of me harboring hope that someday, somehow, I’d be able to save her. If I murdered her now, I’d murder my hope, too. Murder my shot at redemption.
“Just as I thought,” she said, turning with a swish of fabric and heading for the Wendigo, still sprawled on the floor. “She still thinks of you, you know,” she offered, not bothering to look at me. “Those are the memories she clings to the most fervently. They’re also the ones I most enjoy stealing from her.” She bent down with the grace of a queen and scooped up the comatose Wendigo, tossing the thousand-plus pound beast over her shoulder without so much as a grunt.
“What are we to do with you? So much trouble you’ve been.” She stalked over to Doctor Hogg, a model strutting a catwalk. She glanced at me over one shoulder. “But then you’ve always been more of a nuisance than would seem humanly possible. James, please secure the doctor.”
The blade eased away from my throat and slid home into its cane sheath with a rasp of metal. I threw out an awkward elbow, hoping to catch him in the jaw. He danced away, swinging his cane, bring it down behind my knees. The blow swept one leg and sent me sprawling into the floor, my chest sending out a renewed wave of fiery hurt. James lazily sidestepped me and ambled over to Hogg, carefully placing a hand on the doctor’s thick shoulder.
I pushed myself into a sitting position, glaring at James and the Morrigan in equal measures. “I’m gonna kill you, James,” I said, meeting his eye. “I’ll burn down the world to get you for this. I’m coming, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He shrugged. “It’s nothing personal. Please believe that.” He did sound sincere. “I’ve done everything in my power to keep you from getting hurt. In my heart, you’ll always be a friend, Yancy. But this … well, this is bigger than you or me. This is bigger than friendship. Nothing will be the same, not after this. Sadly, such change carries a steep price tag. I suppose, though, this makes us even for Haiti, back in ’76. That’s something, at least.” He offered me a no-hard-feelings-grin.
“You’re not going to get away with this,” I said, staring him down. “You better just kill me now, ’cause I’m just gonna keep coming.”
T
he Morrigan smiled, a radiant flash of teeth that took my broken heart and pulverized the pieces into fine powder.
“We’re counting on it,” she replied. “I wasn’t sure about this plan, not at first, but now I see its elegance”—the last she said more to herself than to me—“it will be worth the risk in the long run. There’s no better horse to bet on than you, Yancy Lazarus.”
What the hell was she talking about? They were counting on my interference? The words made no sense to my addled brain, and only left me more confused. There was obviously something else I was missing, something big, though damn if I knew what.
The Morrigan laughed, the sound bubbling up from her diaphragm. There was a blast of inky smoke, which broke into a cloud of crow wings—the creatures tearing from the room, leaving me behind. Alone. Like I said, there are some things a man has to do alone. Dying is one of them. Sometimes living is, too. I don’t know which is harder.
THIRTY-SIX:
Loose Ends
It’d been four days since my battle with the Wendigo in the Sacred Grove. Kong and Winona were back among their people, tending to the damage the Kinslayer had done during his short but brutal reign. Things weren’t back to normal on that front—far from it—but I had a suspicion that things would work out alright for the peace-loving clan of Chiye-tanka. It’s like the other Sasquatches had simply woken from a bad dream. And without the Seal weighing him down, Kong seemed … well, I’d say happy, but it’d be more accurate to say not pissed.
And now that Winona wasn’t on demonic-Kong patrol twenty-four seven, she was flourishing. Taking charge: restoring the damage Doctor Hogg had done to the Sacred Grove while setting up shop, checking food stocks, tending to wounds, and even organizing self-defense classes. Generally, wherever Winona went, order went in her wake. I’d even seen several hulking piles of hair following her around, making stupid doe-eyes at her as they attempted to woo her. Apparently Winona was one foxy Bigfoot and a real hot catch. Good for her.