“Hopefully we’re not.”
“Oh, good.”
“It’ll all make sense in a minute,” he affirmed.
“Lovely,” I grunted.
Reaching the top of the platform, the entire crew was gathered with exception of Abernethy. Tango and Caveman were huddled in front of a virtual teleLink monitor while Coop and Stoner were diligently prepping their gear. And oddly, Duncan was happily sitting on the captain’s chair lapping some coffee from an oversized mug. Nonchalantly looking up at me, he casually waived a tiny hoof and continued to enjoy his beverage.
That was unexpected.
Everyone was decked out in varying versions of black fatigues and bearing an interesting array of weapons and assault packs. Taking post next to Tango, I got a good look at Crockett, the ghillie suited cleric, on the other end of the teleLink feed.
And damn — I kind of wish I didn’t know that he wasn’t wearing a ghillie suit.
Perched like an apex predator in some form of a tree stand, he blended almost perfectly into the backdrop of branches and steadily falling light snow. His intense green eyes were the only real thing I could lock on to. The rest of his silhouette seemed to shimmer in a perpetually morphing camouflage pattern.
“What’s the latest?” I asked trying my damnedest not to stare.
“Calm before the storm,” Tango replied. “According to Crockett here, it’s all quiet on the western front.”
“With exception to a shit ton of snow and an occasional deer — there’s been nothing inside the perimeter,” Crockett grumbled in a subdued, gravelly tone.
“Looks cold,” I said.
“It is,” he confirmed without emotion. His eyes hardened as his flowing shape became increasingly difficult to differentiate from the surroundings. “Cold doesn’t bother me, never has. It’s the wind that gets me.”
“Call you back when we’re about to port,” Tango said as Crockett’s animal-like gaze continued to sweep the area below his stoop. “Let me know if the situation changes.”
“Will do,” he grunted and faded from sight.
Giving Tango a curious look, he said, “Crockett’s a bit of an outdoors-man. King of the wild frontier — so to speak.”
“You don’t say?” I said dryly.
“Yeah,” he replied, “He’s not stepped foot indoors in over a hundred and fifty years.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Still pissed about the Alamo.”
“Right,” I muttered not exactly sure how to take that. Making the mental note to address that particular topic at a later time, I turned to find Abernethy standing behind us.
“It’s time,” he said with a dark gleam in his eye and signature claymore broadsword resting on a shoulder. “Let’s review the plan.”
As the team gathered around the floating, virtual map, he said, “Our primary objective, lads, is to enter the shadow realm, deposit the Dragonfly, then get the bloody hell out of there before we become permanent residents. Once back on Earth, we destroy the tether thus keeping all the beasties inside.”
“Simple — Easy to remember,” I muttered.
“From the top then, yeah? Once we port to Liverpool, Dean will activate the tether prior to midnight just as the Maradim are expecting.”
Turning to Stoner, he said, “The rest of us will hold fast in Mr. Stoner’s veil, and wait for the bastarts to open the door.”
“Got it,” Stoner said nodding and pointing at the map using a peculiar walking stick inlaid with an interesting collection of sigils and glyphs. “I’ll set our hunting blind up here — a few hundred yards upwind of the target — to the north. Should keep us well out of range of any recon party they send through.”
“What if they get closer?” I asked. “You gonna beat ‘em down with that cane?”
“It’s a staff,” he casually and somewhat condescendingly replied. “And they could be standing right on top of us and not realize it. My veils are a work of art.”
“Then we wait,” Tango said moving on with the plan.
“Aye,” Abernethy grunted. “Then we wait. When the portal opens — the clock starts ticking, lads. We’ve one hour to be in and out. One hour. Jackie will have his eye on the time.”
“Got it, boss,” Rooster said tapping his antique pocket watch.
“Once the beasties come through and secure the area — they’ll bring out the anakim pack and head south leaving two guards at the gateway. Once we get the word from Berko that they’ve cleared out of the immediate area, we’ll make our move.”
He turned to Coop. “Starting with the guards.”
“Yessir,” Coop replied holding out his otherworldly longbow. “I’ll silence the guards while you and hoss creep in to close the deal.”
“With arrows?” I asked skeptically. “From a couple hundred plus yards away — in the dark.”
“Dagum right,” he replied with an air of confidence.
“Coop starts it — we finish it. Quietly,” Abernethy said shifting focus to me and putting a marked emphasis on the quietly part.
“Roger that,” I said still unconvinced that an arrow launched from a football field’s length away was going to do anything to a varangian beside piss them off. Even if it did hit them.
“With the guards disposed of, we cross the threshold into the shadow realm. Me and Dean first — then the rest of you lot. Mickie, You and Duncan will bring up the rear, yeah?”
“All over it, boss,” Caveman said with his furry hands wrapped around the hilt of a double edged battle axe.
“Duncan is coming on the mission?” I asked.
“Yeah, bro,” he replied glancing over at the pocket pig still happily slurping away on his coffee. “Lil’ D’s a hog of war. He’s been throwing down with anakim for centuries. Old school, bro.” Pausing to proudly gaze upon his little buddy, he added, “I don’t go into battle without him.”
“Right,” I muttered not sure why I bothered to ask.
“Jackie, If you please,” Big A said, handing over the remainder of the brief to Rooster.
“Yeppers,” he replied nodding. “A realm can only be unmade from the very physical location that it was created. So, once inside we’ll need to identify the point of origin.” He glanced at Stoner.
“I’ve got the spell ready,” Stoner barked. “The ley lines at the point of origin should be pumping out some serious juice. Won’t take me long to get a lock on it.”
“Once we figure out where we’re going — it’s an all out sprint to get there and deploy the Dragonfly. Tango will take point and scout the path.”
“Got it,” Tango chimed in.
“As with any realm,” Rooster continued, “the point of origin won’t be far from the Earthly tether. So, with any degree of luck — we’ll be in and out.”
“How long to we have once the armageddon cube goes thermonuclear?” I asked.
“Well, that’s the tricky part,” he replied.
“Tricky?” Tango asked raising an eyebrow.
“It’s hard to tell,” Rooster said. “Depending on the size of the realm and the amount of energy binding it together — five minutes. Maybe a little more.”
“Maybe less?” Coop asked, with a hint of concern.
“It’s possible,” Rooster replied. “And once the devolution process starts — it’s a runaway train. There’s no stopping it. With exception, of course, to an act of divine intervention — which is highly unlikely. At any rate, I’ve rigged a timer on the arming mechanism to give us a head start back to the portal. But, trust me, we don’t want to be in there when the Dragonfly kicks into gear.”
“What exactly does this most Rubik of cubes do?” Asked Caveman with a look of mild consternation.
Choosing his next words very carefully, Rooster replied, “Picture a whirlpool. Now picture that same whirlpool but made of judgment fire tainted with dark matter. Now picture that swirling mass of fiery death expanding exponentially while violently sucking time and space into itsel
f, like a voracious black hole, until there’s nothing left.”
“Epic,” Caveman muttered seemingly impressed and terrified at the same time.
“So we’ll be keen not to take in the scenery, lads. Once we’re out, we destroy the tether trapping the rats on the burning ship,” Abernethy said sheathing his sword. “Anymore questions?” Everyone sternly shook their heads. “It’s sorted then.”
“We get in, drop off the package, and get the hell out,” Rooster said with conviction.
“Slap high-fives. Call it a day,” I added.
“Anything gets in our way — We cut the bastarts down where they stand,” grunted Abernethy. “We shall not fail. The Light shines upon us.” His eyes squinted into an icy glare. “For our fallen brothers — For the Balance.”
“The Balance,” the group replied in unison.
As an otherworldly door subtly appeared to the rear of the command bridge, I willed the cloak into being and felt a warm jolt run through me as it manifested in a spectral flash around my shoulders. Almost immediately, a familiar prickling sensation on the back of my neck gave me the unequivocal feeling that somebody else was here.
Watching. Listening.
The same feeling I had at the Gathering.
What the hell?
Quickly convincing myself that I was just being paranoid, I shook it off and followed Big A across the threshold to begin perhaps the strangest tactical operation I’d ever embarked on. The ominous words of Stephen rung heavy in my thoughts.
The world will not be enough.
Failure was not an option.
Chapter 31
It was cold. Damn cold.
Of course it was. Evidently that’s the only kind of place I had the pleasure of visiting in my humble not so afterlife. When this was over I was so renegotiating the terms of my immortal contract.
White sandy beaches — Palm trees — Fruity drinks with little umbrellas — Bikini clad super models — Ricardo Montalban and his vertically challenged buddy yelling ‘Ze plane! Ze plane!’ — Pamela Anderson diligently patrolling the shore line on a surf board. I would accept nothing less.
The brogue accentuated bark of my supernatural superior snapped me from my fleeting moment of happy delusion as my boots crunched through the snow in a small clearing bordering a heavily wooded area on the fringe of Liverpool, New York.
“This spot will do, lads,” Abernethy said pulling to a halt. “The target is straight away.”
It was quiet. Serene. A steady flurry of light snow gracefully drifted from the night sky adding a fresh layer to the already blanketed trees and surrounding landscape. A picturesque half moon sporadically peaked out from beyond the clouds, giving the scene an occasional opaque glow as the moonlight danced along the wintery setting.
“Jackie, Time check.”
“Eleven forty-two, boss.”
Big A flipped me the cursed coin. “You’re on.”
“Roger,” I said snatching it from the frigid air and quickly tucking it away in a pocket. Instantly snapping into mission mode, I pulled the hood of the cloak over my head and willed the spatha and the otherworldly Winchester into being.
After all, showing up to a sword fight with just a sword was so incredibly first centuryish.
Feeling the presence of both the sheath and holster-like scabbard on my back, I focused my will for a quick second and just like that — I melted from sight.
Yep. I could turn myself invisible. Who knew, right?
Well, not exactly invisible but close enough. One of the nifty little tricks of the trade Abernethy had shared with me during our pre-game training session. The Deacon’s cloak was full of all kinds of similar arcane pleasantries. Unfortunately, it didn’t come with an owner’s manual. Typical.
At any rate, now that I had my cloaking device activated — it was time to get the party started.
Cloak-ing device … Yes, I went there. Couldn’t resist.
Finding the hemlock tree with my Sight was not a difficult task. Infused with power from the glyph, it shone like an otherworldly beacon on the far side of the clearing, roughly a hundred and fifty yards to the south. Leaving the rest of the team to set up shop in our temporary defilade position, I focused on the tree and took three bold steps.
Instantly arriving at the target location, I heard a rather curious bird call and turned my attention upward. Crouched within the tree tops was an ambiguous shape that was barely detectable even with my Sight. As what appeared to be a hand started to wave and form a peace sign, I realized it was Crockett. And he could evidently still see me despite my best attempt at veiling myself. Casually returning his wave, I watched in awe as he fluidly leapt through the treetops like a supernatural Tarzan until he was simply gone.
“Yep. That was cool.”
Making the mental note that I really needed to figure out what that guy’s deal was at some point in the future, I pulled the Judas penny from my pocket and carefully approached the tree.
Just as the first time I touched it, the shekel hummed with a dark energy. A cursed energy. As I reached up and placed it into the circular pattern burned into the trunk of the hemlock tree it was like placing a key into a lock. A perfect fit.
Upon the mating of the Instrument with the Earthly tether, a brilliant radiance of purple-white light flooded the surrounding forest. It was pure elegance. So much so that I had trouble watching it. Slowly swirling into the form of a sphere, it steadily ascended into the night sky. It was also familiar. I’d witnessed such a phenomenon before.
And that’s when I heard the voice.
Free me.
It was the voice of a woman. She said it again.
Free me.
And then rather violently, the sphere was yanked downward and sucked back into the coin by an unseen force. The light abruptly vanished, like a candle was blown out. As the tether once again looked like nothing more than a simple tree in a moonlit forest, I heard another word spoken in a tone so desperate that it made me cringe.
Please.
And then there were only the sounds of the woods.
My face curled into a brooding scowl as the reality of what was happening became suddenly apparent. My mind flashed back to the Bosnian church and Azazel parading around with his glyph-laden scythe.
The unfathomable power required to punch a hole through the fabric of reality and create a temporary tether to a shadow realm was not provided by the coin. The coin was merely the conduit. The raw power to perform such a feat required something more. Something unquantifiable. Something precious.
A human soul.
A human soul brutally harvested by Azazel himself, just as he attempted to do to Father Watson as he lay on his deathbed. The mysterious glyph on the shekel was a binding spell — a soul trap.
Son of a bitch.
My mind instantly filled with harrowing images of the unspeakable torture inflicted on countless people to feed this dark purpose. The primal power of the cloak surged from deep within, and I found myself instinctively snarling. My hands were instantly covered in the ashen stone gauntlets, and the snow around me began to melt. I think I was about to do something incredibly stupid when the snapping of a branch from a nearby tree overloaded with snow broke me from the fury fueled trance.
Exhaling deeply and burying my rage, I turned and took three bold steps returning to the crew.
The passing of the next few minutes felt like hours — days — months. As I regained rational control over my emotions and briefed Abernethy and the team on my discovery, we waited anxiously in our veiled hiding spot for the Maradim to open the portal.
“Trapping souls,” Rooster rhetorically muttered in a whisper. “Damn …”
“Bloody hell,” Abernethy grumbled.
Stoner was about to say something but never had the chance, for a floating virtual screen appeared, and a shimmering image of Crockett came into focus.
“The portal’s manifesting,” he whispered.
Snapping our combined atte
ntion across the clearing, we locked on to a definitive source of light steadily pulsing from the hemlock tree. Within a few seconds, the bluish-white silhouette of a large doorway formed on the edge of the wood line. And out stepped two figures. Although they were large framed and noticeably tall, even across the great distance, they were certainly not anakim. It also appeared they were naked. Awkward.
“Lycaon,” muttered Crockett in a hushed tone as the picture on the screen shifted to an aerial view of the now open portal. The dark figures took a few steps into the clearing, and without speaking they dropped to all fours and took the shape of steroid infused super wolves. Immediately darting into the surrounding forest with their noses to the ground, they faded into the darkness of the trees, evidently looking for anybody that shouldn’t be there. Like us.
“Keep still, lads,” Abernethy whispered.
The occasional muted sounds of large paws tramping through the snow at a high rate of speed echoed through the woods, and it was fairly apparent that the lycaon sentries were systematically making their way around the perimeter. Within a few seconds, two more figures emerged from the dim lighting of the gateway. They were taller than their predecessors and all dolled up in snazzy looking body armor making their already formidable shapes look just that much more ominous. Despite the darkness, I was still able to make out an array of sharp and pointy instruments of death strapped throughout their torsos. And oddly, it actually looked like one of the jokers had an M-240 machine gun slung across his shoulders. That was new.
As the wonder mutts completed their patrol and met the newcomers at the entrance to the portal, Crockett’s camouflaged face once again appeared on the screen.
“The new guys are varangian. One of them has a gun,” he muttered. “A big one.”
“Sweet,” Tango said with just a hint of sarcasm from behind me.
Within another second or two, another shape passed through the portal. A massive shape. Boldly stepping into the woods like he owned the joint, there was no mistaking it — anakim. And a big frigg’n one at that. Like — easily twice as tall as the varangian and easily four times as wide — kind of big. Its muscles had muscles. Hell, I think its frigg’n hair had muscles. The cloak flared up around my shoulders as I clenched my teeth and pulled my hands into tight fists.
Rise of the Giants: The Guild of Deacons, Book 1 Page 31