Israel landed in a heap on top of one of the stone tables. Both he and the corpse that was already there sprawled onto the floor in a tangle of dead limbs and slick, congealing blood. Israel wrestled the body from on top of him. He was covered in blood now- skin, hair, clothing. The smell of it was maddening. Israel tried to crawl away from it, but there was no escape.
“That was very dramatic, Israel. Tactically idiotic, but dramatic. Like so many of your generation, you’ve learned about battle from movies and video games. It will make you such easy prey.”
Israel huddled back against the stone table, keeping it between him and The Seer. The blood was everywhere, sweet and metallic and calling to him like the finest wine. He wanted it, wanted to scoop it in his hands, drink from it, savor it, he wanted-
Israel kept his teeth clenched against the urges. He would not do it, he told himself, not from another human. Never that, no matter what, never from another human. His eyes popped open and he stripped off his bloody shirt, trying to get as much of the blood away from him as he could. He rubbed at his hands, rubbed-
It was like watching a puddle evaporate in a fast-forwarded film. The thin sheet of blood soaked into his skin like water into a damp sponge. Eyes wide, Israel took two fingers and scooped a small amount of blood onto a relatively clean spot on his forearm. It took a few seconds, but it was definitely soaking into him. This was involuntary, like a normal man putting on lotion for his skin to absorb. It wasn’t feeding, but it might take the edge off.
“Did you really think my dark masters would not reward me for my efforts here, Israel? Their flesh protects me, their minds work through me. You are nothing compared to that.”
Israel stood up from behind the stone table like a rising revenant. Blood was smeared over every inch of his half-naked body. Israel glistened with it and faced the Seer from across the bloody pit.
“You and your cult stole my life. I’m going to make you pay for that.”
“Please, Israel. I gave you a life. A real life. In the real world. You should be thanking me.”
“Oh, get over yourself,” Israel said and ran forward.
The Seer flicked his hands back and forth and thick appendages slapped at Israel, knocking him back and or to one side. He dodged where he could, tried to knock aside the black limbs, but there were just too many. He went tumbling to one side or another while The Seer stood laughing. Israel did not stop, though. He got back up and kept coming until finally The Seer shouted “Enough!” and gripped his fists tightly before his face. The tentacle that had just knocked Israel to the ground suddenly snaked around his upper body while another secured his calves. He could still bend his arms at the elbow and he struggled against the grip but even his new strength was nothing compared to what held him. The Seer gestured and the appendages lifted Israel and carried him to within an arm’s reach of The Seer. Israel met his eyes and did not blink.
“I suppose I owe you some small thanks, Israel. There is a necessary delay between sacrifices and the waiting was dreadfully dull until you showed up. Now, though, I think you will have to be next. You are a powerful and rare Paragon, Israel, and your blood will make a delicious elixir for my masters.”
Israel continued to struggle, but the hideous grip on him just seemed to tighten and push his arms farther to his back.
“I don’t think cutting me open will do you much good,” he said, struggling to draw in air for the words.
“I suppose not. I think decapitation will achieve the same results, though. Besides, it’s nice to break up one’s routine on occasion.”
“That,” Israel said, “is really good advice.” His right hand slid low and around from his back, upper arm pressed tight against his chest. In his hand was Stone’s pistol. Israel pointed in The Seer’s general direction and fired all eleven shots at the man.
It was by no means expert marksmanship but six bloody holes appeared in The Seer’s chest, neck, and abdomen as the man staggered backwards. He held his feet for a moment and then fell to his knees, blood fountaining from the wound in his throat. He seemed to try and speak as he reached for the mass of oily flesh that protruded from the ceiling, but slumped forward instead, one useless hand trying to stem the dying flow of blood from his neck.
As he died, whatever connection he had with the things from the Inner Dark suddenly sent them into a frenzy. The otherworldly protrusions extended violently at the moment of The Seer’s death and started slapping and clawing at everything in the room. Israel was thrown from his bonds and hit the wall above the highest tier hard enough that he felt the bone in his upper arm crack. He scrambled to his feet. He thought the portal would close with The Seer’s passing; instead, he stood and watched in horror as this small part of The Seer’s dark god starting stabbing into the remaining sacrifices and pushing at the edges of the glowing disk. A dozen people died in the blink of an eye. There was a sharp crack from above him and Israel looked up to see dozens and dozens of the black tendrils snaking along the ceiling and forcing their way through the stone and dirt. Another crack echoed through the air and flat rock that was as long as Israel was tall hit a tier five feet from him and shattered.
That snapped him out of his mental shock and he ran along the upper tier until he was even with the ledge he’d first come in on. He tensed his legs and jumped high enough that he managed to catch the edge and claw his way over. He rose and spared an instant to look back. More rocks were falling and he could swear the disk was larger than it had been.
Israel turned and sprinted for the tunnel. The ground shuddered under his feet. He came to the stairwell and raced up the trembling steel stairs three at a time. Bursting from the stairwell door, Israel dodged around the debris as old bricks and rusty metal started falling from the structure. Suddenly, the floor in front of him bowed outward and then ruptured as a black tentacle as thick as a man’s waist shot up through the floor and slapped against the far wall, knocking it outward and bringing a section of the ceiling crumbling down on top of the flailing appendage.
Israel was knocked backwards, but got back on his feet almost immediately. Other sections of the floor started to rupture and he sprinted forward as fast as he could, dodging debris and jumping over black shapes emerging from underground. He reached the largest of the tentacles and ran up its length a few feet before leaping off of it and into the Texas night. He hit the ground, rolled, and came up running with the crack of collapsing stone and the screech of tearing metal echoing through the night behind him.
After a few seconds he skidded to a stop and looked back. The hunger was on him again, like a fever in his bones, but the sight before him made it seem almost negligible. The Blackstar Meat-packing facility was falling apart. Whole walls collapsed onto the vehicles that had been parked outside as black, writhing shapes, some of them the size of large trees, burst from the ground and sent stone, brick, and metal debris sailing into the night. Israel watched as they twisted and reached skyward as though they were clawing their way to Heaven.
He noticed the first of the figures as they came streaming over and around the hill that he, Erin, and Stone had taken refuge on earlier. It was the squidheads from Leticia. They flooded over the hill, hundreds of them, and rushed into the mass of alien flesh, heedless of debris or danger. They leapt at the huge appendages with their arms, legs, and head tendrils spread wide. When they struck one, they stuck to it and the tendrils latched on, pulling the human faces and bodies into the black flesh. Israel watched as, very slowly, the bodies were absorbed.
Despite not needing it, Israel drew in a deep, shuddering breath. His mind raced as he watched more and more of the squidheads throw themselves into oblivion. He looked at the hill to see if they were still coming and exhaled the useless breath when he saw what was sitting on top of it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
He got to the top of the hill at a sprint. The hunger was gnawing at him, but panic helped him push it aside. It was hard to decide what he found more unbelievable, the horror
happening in the valley below him or the aviation fuel truck that had inexplicably appeared atop this hill in the Texas desert. Except that it wasn’t inexplicable if you knew the people he did.
“Erin!” he yelled. “Where are you?”
There was no reply. He approached the truck from the passenger side and let his hand slide across its smooth, metal surface. Some small part of him wanted to laugh despite the horror of the situation. What Erin could do simply amazed him. He called her name again as he rounded the rear of the vehicle to the driver’s side. Erin was lying in the dirt by the driver’s door.
Israel rushed to her and dropped to his knees. She had fallen face down so he rolled her over to get a better look at her. Again, his body ached at the sight and scent of her warm flesh but he pushed it aside with unyielding determination.
She was alive, but her breath was heavy and seemed to come in wheezing gasps. Blood flowed in slow lines from her nose and mixed with the dirt there to muddy her face. There was blood on her lips and when her eyes fluttered open he could see the star-burst pattern of ruptured capillaries in her eyes.
“Izzy,” she whispered, blood showing in the grooves between her teeth, “Izzy, it was too heavy… I pushed too hard… Fuck, it hurts…”
Israel lifted her head out of the dirt. “Hey, no sweat, you got it here. You’re still dropping f-bombs so you’re fine. Just stay awake, okay?”
She nodded and stammered, “Help me up… I want to sit up…”
He lifted her as gently as he could. There was a massive, shuddering eruption from the bottom of the hill and a cloud of dust bloomed in the sky.
Erin’s head snapped around with pained efficiency. “What’s that?”
“The Breach,” Israel said. “I didn’t close it. I thought I could but it didn’t work.”
“The truck,” Erin said. “Carter rigged-” She winced as a wave of pain rolled through her. “He rigged the truck. It can do it if it’s not too late.”
“How? We can’t even crank the thing.”
She told him to help her up. He did so, ignoring his instincts all the while. She leaned on the truck and pointed at an exposed set of pipes and valves that were installed under the large tank on the back of the truck. Israel assumed it was the spot that workers attached the hoses they needed to fuel up an aircraft.
“There’s a handle there. It’s got a red cord tied to it.”
Israel spotted it and said, “Okay?”
“Carter did his… his bloodline thing. He says that if we open that valve we’ll have about a minute before whatever he did lights a fire in this thing and it blows sky-high.”
Israel looked the handle over carefully. He saw scratches on the metal that reminded him of what he’d seen on Carter’s plane earlier. “Is he sure this is going to work here? Nothing else seems to.”
Erin didn’t reply. She was leaning hard against the truck, holding one arm over her abdomen. Israel got up and said, “Hey, hey, hang in there. Look, do you think you can get back to Vegas? I think you need a hospital.”
“I’m not going back alone,” she whispered. Israel could sense her pain, smell the blood on her breath. A part of him thought how easy it would be to take her as weak as she was. He turned away and closed his eyes, concentrating on the task at hand and pushing the gnawing hunger to the side.
“If we just push it down the hill, it might veer off to one side,” he said without looking back. “We need to steer it down, drive it right down that thing’s throat or whatever.”
“I’m sorry,” Erin said. “I thought I could just send it there, but it’s just too big.”
“You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about. You just chill here; I’ll handle the big bang.”
“No way,” Erin said, her voice hard with determination. “Carter said this stuff would go up in a big way. You can’t know you’ll get clear of it. I can do that much. We’ll ride it down and just before it hits I’ll get us away. I think I’ve got that much left in the tank.”
“Erin, are you sure? You look like hell.”
Despite her pain, Erin let out a small laugh. “Says the dead guy. Check the mirror, Izzy- you’re not exactly ready for a close-up.”
Israel turned and faced her. She met his eyes and said, “We had a deal. We see this shit through until we’re out of it. We watch each other’s back. I’m not leaving you here.”
Israel stared at her while another, smaller, impact echoed through the valley. Finally, he nodded and without a word picked Erin up like they were newlyweds crossing a threshold and carried her around to the passenger side. When she saw the crater that had once been the meatpacking plant and the mass of fleshy black trying to claw its way free, she inhaled sharply and whispered, “Oh my god.”
Israel didn’t reply. He put her in the passenger seat and closed the door behind her. He returned to the driver’s side and climbed into the cab. He made sure the brakes were disengaged and the truck was in neutral. This done, he got out and did a quick assessment of the ground running up to his target. There were a few things he would have look out for, but it was a relatively straight shot. He would have to get the truck rolling, though, and hope the momentum would be enough to get them there.
Plan in mind, he walked back to the handle Erin had shown him and pushed it into position. Orange-gold light radiated out in a band of angled patterns around the pipe. It startled Israel and he pulled his hand away, thinking for moment that the truck would explode prematurely.
It didn’t, though, and he quickly found a grip on the frame and started pushing.
The truck didn’t move.
He pushed harder, his feet digging in to the desert soil from the pressure. Every muscle in his body strained against the weight and he heard an inhuman growl roll from his throat. Then, inch by inch, Israel Trent moved nearly fifteen tons of truck and jet fuel until it started coasting down the hill toward his enemy.
He leapt into the driver’s side of the cab before the truck was moving too fast. He clamped his hands onto the steering wheel and focused on the ground outside the windshield. He was on fire with hunger. In the confined space with Erin the heady, metallic musk of her bloodied skin was maddening. The things that he wanted to do, the horrible, monstrous things that he was instinctively contemplating, flowed through his mind like a torrent of blind, unthinking blood-lust. He ground his teeth until he thought they would crack and fought it all back, narrowing his focus to guiding the truck to its target.
It bounced along, gaining speed as it coasted down the steep hill. Smaller obstacles were either knocked away or crushed beneath heavy tires. They reached the base of the hill and the truck bounced hard at the sudden change in angle but seemed to keep its momentum. Neither Erin nor Israel had bothered to put on seat belts and were jarred in their seats by the impact. Erin cried out in pain and the sound raised a low, unwilling growl in Israel’s throat. He stopped it and continued to focus on the desert that was rushing at them.
They were almost halfway across the distance to the Breach when the truck started to slow. Israel could feel it and squeezed the steering wheel so tight he felt he plastic coating crack in his hands.
“Oh, shit,” Erin said, “we aren’t going to make it all the way.”
Suddenly, the windshield was filled with black and something knocked the truck sideways. Windows shattered and Israel and Erin were tossed around the cabin as the truck was lifted into the air, then down again, and then suddenly high over the Breach by two of the massive tentacles.
Israel was still clinging to the steering wheel as the truck tilted forward in the monster’s grasp. Israel looked at Erin, stunned and bloody, lying against the dashboard with her hands extended to hold herself steady. There was a part of him that recognized her, knew who she was. There was a greater part, though, that just didn’t care.
The thing from the Inner Dark dropped the truck and it fell toward the Breach.
Israel let loose a ravenous growl and reached for Erin.
She looked up at him with her blood-speckled eyes and in a weary voice said, “I wish you could’ve been my brother.” Then, she touched his extended hand.
Israel was suddenly falling through the cool desert night. He hit the ground hard and got to his feet looking for Erin, for the sweet-scented flesh that had been so close only a moment before. Something registered in the struggling part of his mind and he looked to the west. In the distance, waving black shadows slapped against the desert night like angry cobras emerging from a nest. A small, white shape was just vanishing into the bottom of the black mass when a fireball burst from it with a thunderous roar and lit up the night with a blossom of fire that reached a hundred or more feet into the air. The shock wave that rushed out from it knocked Israel off his feet even though he was easily a half a mile away.
Israel watched the fire collapse back in on itself as the black monstrosities quivered and fell limp to the desert floor, burning bright. The strange light that had permeated the former Blackstar facility was breaking apart and fading into something more normal. Within minutes, the only movement on the horizon was the rolling smoke and dancing flames.
Israel scanned the desert around him. He was alone. Somewhere beneath the blinding hunger a part of him screamed in anger and sorrow at that fact. The rest, though, the part that was in control now, sniffed the desert air and ran into the living night.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
It was nearly noon the day after the Leticia Incident, as it came to be called, before the DGRI helicopters spotted Israel Trent wandering the desert. By then, he’d left enough of a trail of dead snakes and rabbits behind him that he was back in control of himself, so he hadn’t fought them when they had landed and taken him into custody.
Awakened Page 27