Worm

by John Mccrae Wildbow

  “The sin of sloth versus the realm of possibility,” Jack added, gesturing to my demon as he said sloth, then to his own angel.

  “Well said, well said!” Nilbog said. He nodded so hard his double and triple chins wobbled.

  “Or is the angel making false promises?” I asked. “There’s no security. No comfort. You claim to care about your creations, but you’d go to war?”

  “Many have gone to war and made sacrifices in the present, for the sake of a brighter future,” Jack commented.

  “I thought you were trying to break out of the rut?” I asked.

  Jack laughed at that.

  He’s enjoying this.

  I felt almost dirty, knowing I was only helping Jack in his self-indulgence, helping him revel in conflict.

  “Well, stranger?” Nilbog asked.

  “Golem,” Golem said.

  Jack snorted at that. He’d caught the meaning behind the name right off, the white supremacist’s son naming himself after a creature from a Jewish parable.

  “Golem, then.”

  “I’m not an eloquent speaker.”

  “That’s a good thing,” I said. “Too many and it just becomes people talking circles around one another.”

  “Then I guess I have to get to the heart of it all. Direct.”

  “Yes,” Nilbog said. He leaned forward, and I feared the table would break.

  “Were you happy, before any of us came here?”

  “Yes. I can eat the most delicious foods, yet get every nutrient I need. I can fuck the most beautiful and exotic women you’d ever imagine, whenever I wish. Every need is provided for a hundred times over, and I’m surrounded by those who love me.”

  “Then why change? Why do anything? Let us leave, then return to your utopia.”

  Nilbog nodded. He rubbed at his chin, but the act was like pushing one’s hand into jello. It shifted the mass more than it rubbed.

  “You wanted a tie breaker?” Golem asked. “This is it. Do what Weaver is saying. Do what the Queen is suggesting. Stay quiet, enjoy what you’ve built here. Attack, and the entire world will take it away. Then, even if you’re strong enough to survive that, which you may be, then Jack will still betray you.”

  “Or,” Jack said, “You can stop lying to yourself.”

  Nilbog snapped his head around. He growled, “Impertinent.”

  “Your people are slowly starving. You make them eat each other to live, and desperately attempt to shoot any birds out of the sky so you can try to recoup what you lose. Bonesaw said they don’t live long. How long?”

  “Four years. Sometimes five.” All at once, the light was gone from Nilbog’s face, the sudden fury quenched.

  “Who’s your favorite?” Jack asked.

  “Polka,” Nilbog said. He reached out, and a female creature, no taller than three feet, hopped up onto the lap of the creature beside her king. She had a narrow face with a reptilian structure, with only four fangs at the very front, but smooth, humanlike skin. Her hair was white, her skin blue. She wore a toddler’s clothes, a long, narrow tail lashing behind her. Nilbog stroked her hair.

  “Not the first Polka,” Jack said.

  “No. The third.”

  “She was your first, and you love her for that, because she drew you from the hell that was your life before godhood, gave you this.”

  I can’t interrupt this. Not with the subject being something so close to Nilbog’s heart. I might win the argument, but I’d lose Nilbog’s ear.

  But I knew I was losing anyways. Jack had found Nilbog’s weak point.

  “My first friend,” Nilbog said.

  “And she dies. Because your creations don’t last. You make another, and slowly fall in love with her all over again, and yet you know she’ll die in turn.”

  “Yes,” Nilbog said.

  “Bonesaw can fix that. I can grant you immortality. I can grant your creation that same gift,” Jack said.

  “A hard offer to refuse.”

  “It would be wise to refuse,” Golem said.

  “A king can’t be selfish,” I said. “A god definitely can’t be selfish. Your responsibility is to your creations.”

  “Exactly what I’m saying,” Jack said. “Step out of your comfort zone, to better your people.”

  “Enough!” Nilbog screamed the word. As if responding to his anger, every single creature in the area responded. Weapons raised, spines extended.

  And Jack was still invincible.

  “Nilbog,” I said.

  “Speak again, and I’ll end you, queen or no.”

  His eyes were angry, hard.

  He’d lived for so long in his comfort zone, and now he was being called on to make a hard choice.

  “Then please listen carefully,” I said. “Because I suppose I’m paying for this with my life.”

  “So be it,” he said.

  “If you want proof that Jack intends to betray you, look no farther than your own creations.”

  “What?”

  “He’s secreted an assassin into your midst. A killer who pretends to be one of your creations.”

  A gamble, a last ditch effort. Was my gut right? Had Jack instructed Bonesaw to create a costume or a creature to hide the Siberian’s creator?

  I called my flight pack to me, parked it on a rooftop nearby. If it came down to it, I’d have to run. I could see Golem tensing. He’d read the situation right.

  “Just look,” I told Nilbog. “Because somewhere nearby, there’s a creature you didn’t create.”

  His eyes roved over the crowd.

  “Might not be in this crowd, but it’ll be close.”

  “I see it,” Nilbog said. “I see it. Bossy, Patch, hold him!”

  The crowd of creatures parted as two creatures took another in their hands.

  “Not an assassin,” Jack said. “Merely one of Bonesaw’s… I suppose you can call it a homage.”

  “It is,” Bonesaw said.

  The Siberian was moving. Readying to pounce?

  I couldn’t move fast enough if he did.

  “Wait,” Jack said. He stood from his chair.

  No, I thought. “Don’t listen.”

  “I’ll do as I please,” Nilbog said. “Last words, sir Jack?”

  “Last words, yes.” Jack approached the captive. The Siberian followed.

  “You let him do this, and he kills you,” I said. “Your creations will go mad with grief, and they’ll die in a war for vengeance, just like Jack wants.”

  “Not at all,” Jack said. “Because…”

  An instant before the Siberian made contact with the monster, Golem jammed his hand into his side, using his power, throwing the creator into the air with one thrusting hand. Siberian lunged, punching through the hand of soil to grab the creator’s foot.

  Nilbog half-rose from his seat, though he was massive enough that standing was hardly possible. His eyes moved from Golem to the hand, anger etching his expression, if one could etch into a face as soft as his.

  “You dare disturb the peace!?” Nilbog screamed the question. “Kill the queen! Kill the Golem-man!”

  In that instant, Golem created two hands, throwing us back.

  I caught the flight pack in the air, hugging it. It provided lift. Not enough to stop my momentum as I headed back towards the ground, but enough that I could shift my direction to land on a rooftop. Golem wasn’t so lucky, as he fell into the midst of a sea of the creatures.

  “Azazels, now!” I screamed, one finger pressed to my earbud. I pulled on the flight pack and then took off again.

  Golem used his power to create a platform, slowly raising himself above the street. Creatures tumbled off of the surface of it. Some flew at him, and he struck at them. Not enemies he was capable against. I sent my bugs to them, the reserve I still had on hand, commanding the bugs to bite and sting.

  Others leaped onto rooftops, then onto the rising platform. Golem grabbed one claw as it slashed for his face. He couldn’t do anything about the othe
r, as it gouged his armor, scoring it. He created a fist that jutted out of his chestplate, striking the creature off of the rising hand-platform.

  Spines rained down on him. One caught him in the shoulder, and he collapsed.

  “Where are the Azazels!” I shouted. The flying creatures were turning my way.

  But Defiant had said they were unreliable. Dragon was out of commission.

  My bugs burrowed towards the buried Nilbog. Jack had orchestrated a war. Killing the creature’s creator wouldn’t stop that, wouldn’t keep them from rampaging and seeking out revenge beyond the walls.

  But it would slow things down.

  They inched ever closer. Jack was untouchable, but…

  Yes. Worms, centipedes and other subterranean bugs made their way to the buried goblin king, and forced their way into the sac that enveloped him, past the threads of material that wound down his throat and nostrils, and into his airways.

  “Creatures of Ellisburg!” I screamed.

  Heads turned.

  “You’ve been betray-”

  And before I could say more, Jack’s knife slash caught me across the chest, the cut severing the straps of my flight pack. I dropped from the sky, landing on one of those ramshackle, spiraling rooftops. Planks that had been poorly nailed in collapsed around me as I hit solid ground.

  My hope of turning the monsters against the Nine had been foiled. The fall had knocked the wind out of me. I couldn’t get my footing, and the creatures were advancing. Every possible combination of features, it seemed like, an infinite army, unpredictable.

  Your king is dying, I thought, my mouth moving and failing to form the sounds. There was only the barest whisper. I killed him, but if you could believe that Jack did it…

  I would have used my bugs instead, but I had so few, here.

  I sent those few to Golem, removing them from the flying creatures.

  “Nilbog dies,” I spoke through the bugs, but the range of sounds was too limited, and with scarcely thirty bugs in total, they were quiet.

  “Nilbog’s dying,” Golem said, his voice coming through the comm system.

  One creature, eyeless, like a crocodile with a serpentine body, advanced on me, looming over me. Its jaws opened.

  The lizard boy was here too. A drop of venom appeared on one distended fang. I was surprised by the fury on his expression.

  “Blame Jack,” I said, through the swarm.

  “Jack Slash has used us as a distraction to kill your king!”

  Golem hollered the words at the top of his lungs. I felt a tension leave me. I might be fucked, but we’d limited the damage. They’d turn it inward.

  The attack stopped. The creature looming over me turned and slid away in a flash. The lizard-boy remained. Still recovering from the fall, I couldn’t muster enough strength to fight back if he bit.

  I commanded the flight pack instead, flying it into him with both wings extended. He was brained, and the pack ricocheted off his skull, one wing shattering.

  Golem had risen almost to safety, though he was still too far from the wall that had been erected around the city.

  I looked at the wall.

  Looked past it, at the capes who were swiftly approaching.

  Rescue.

  I brought the flight pack to me, the broken wing partially retracted, the other still extended, and pulled it on with slow, agonized movements.

  Lost without their master, half of the creatures seemed to turn on the Nine, the other half seemed to remain intent on Golem and me.

  Capes settled around me, forming a defensive line against the ones who approached. Revel was among them, using her energy blasts to pick off the largest ones.

  Someone picked me up, then took flight.

  “Jack,” I wheezed out the word.

  The Siberian took hold of the umbilical cord and heaved, Jack maintaining contact with a hand on the Siberian’s shoulder. Nilbog, still slowly dying of oxygen loss, was brought to the surface with a surprising ease. Bonesaw wrapped her arms around the man. Frailer than his self on the surface, smaller.

  I felt a moment’s despair.

  Foil? Someone who could stop Siberian?

  Somebody?

  The heroes advanced, but the Nine created a portal, and were gone in a flash, Nilbog carried between them.

  Leaving the monsters of Ellisburg to riot.

  26.05

  Unholy screams and screeches followed us as we made our retreat, landing beyond the walls of Ellisburg. In moments, Nilbog’s fairy wonderland had become a hell on earth, thousands of demons crawling from the literal woodwork to attack. The ground split as subterranean creatures emerged, while others climbed out of buildings that seemed to have been built around them. One was somewhere between a dragon and a gargoyle in appearance. Big, leathery wings, with a gnarled body and a leering, fanged face.

  The flying creatures, the gargoyle-dragon included, took flight perching atop the walls, then backed down as a barrage of gunfire and superpowered attacks assaulted them.

  “Shuffle!” Revel cried out her lieutenant’s name.

  Shuffle stepped forward and used his power. Teleportation, but not teleportation of living things. Not people, anyways. Grass didn’t hinder him much.

  He teleported the landscape. A hill was bisected and placed against the ruined entrance of the facility.

  His power was unpredictable. There were metrics he couldn’t quite grasp or understand. Teleporting things in sometimes teleported things out. In attempting to shore up the wall, he created gaps.

  But this was a known issue, one he’d been dealing with for some time. Unsurprised, he fixed the resulting hole with two more followup teleports. If any terrain was removed, it was inside the structure, unimportant.

  Something inside Goblintown struck the wall, hard, and then started clawing at it. I could sense it’s silhouette with the few bugs I had near the area. It was four-legged, with all of the most effective parts of a rhino, bear and elephant combined, and it was big enough that I suspected it could make its way through the great concrete wall.

  Defending capes had gathered in a loose ring around Ellisburg. Revel and Shuffle were among them, which I took to be a sign that Golem’s group had handled whatever issues had arisen in Norfolk. The heroes opened fire as the gargoyle-dragon thing explored the upper edge of the wall again, and it disappeared, only to make an appearance further down, trying to find a spot where the defensive line was weaker.

  This was the worst case scenario, on so many levels. We couldn’t afford to be dealing with this.

  “Two more attacks,” Revel said. “Just minutes ago. Two different cities. The situation in Redfield is still ongoing, which means we have three crisis situations set up by the Slaughterhouse Nine.”

  “Four, if you count this,” Shuffle said.

  The creature hit the wall again. Shuffle shored it up, placing the other half of the hill against it.

  “This is getting out of control,” Revel said.

  “You’re implying we had control,” Jouster said. He stood off to one side, with the defensive line of capes.

  “More out of control,” she said.

  I’d been placed on the ground as the capes landed. I was aware that someone was checking me for injuries, but it seemed secondary. I stared up at the overcast sky, watching the rare raindrop tap the lens of my mask. My mind was whirling while my swarm was feeding me information on the ongoing fight, both inside and outside the walls.

  I stirred as I heard Golem’s voice. He was sitting a short distance from me. “This is my fault.”

  “It was a lose-lose situation,” I said. I moved my arm to allow the medic to check my ribs. “Jack set it up this way.”

  “I could have done something. Said something different.”

  “No. We played the cards we had available, it wasn’t enough. Bonesaw’s power and Siberian’s invulnerability made for ugly trump cards.”

  “There had to be a way.”

  “We’re cop
ing,” I said.

  “Are we?” he asked. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

  “We came through every challenge he set in front of us so far.”

  “That doesn’t mean we’re doing okay,” he responded.

  I didn’t have a response to that.

  He stood. “I’m going to go talk to some of the people in charge, find out where I can be useful.”

  “Okay,” I told him.

  He walked off, and I let my head rest against the ground.

  Jack had a game plan here, and the more I thought about it, the more the ‘game’ seemed to be a farce. He knew we were helping. He was setting up situations where we had to help. When we’d started winning, maybe even winning faster than he’d anticipated, he’d ratcheted things up.

  Just as it had at the outset, the situation now seemed to offer Theo the same dilemma as Jack had aimed to provide early on. To go after Jack or focus on bigger things.

  It was measured, calculated, and it suggested that Jack was fully aware and fully in control of what was going on.

  A cape knelt beside me. “Are you alright?”

  We’d only gone through a small fraction of the Nine. Even assuming every group we had run into had been exterminated, there were so many left to deal with.

  My strengths lay in problem solving. Jack’s strength lay in problem creation.

  We came up with a solution to whatever crisis he posed, he responded by creating another, something offbeat enough that we had to change things up. Specialized groups of his pet monsters, two scenarios at once, and now we had new issues popping up before we’d finished with the last round.

  The clones weren’t as fleshed out as the originals. A little more reckless. They were being set up to fail. Were they scary? Yes. Were they effective? Yes. But we were winning, and Jack wasn’t using them in a way that kept them alive. They were expendable assets.

  It was all too possible that we could keep winning, if the game continued down this road. We’ll lose some, but we’ll come out ah-

  No.

  Golem was right. We’d achieve a steady stream of victories. Nothing more.

  “Weaver?”

  I pushed myself to my feet. A cape put his hands on my shoulders, to try to get me to stay still.