“You sound like Munsher,” he said. “But with fancier words. He sees The Presence simply as a military asset to be used as a weapon. His simple mind can’t grasp the totality of my grand vision. He refuses to evolve. As a species, we must also evolve.”
I narrowed my eyes. “This is not the kind of evolution we need, Redmann.”
“Today, I will finally be able to give our Lord the evolution he deserves. A proper vessel for him to take into the world. He will be an angel unto man. Spreading his seed to all of humanity. Transforming all of them into all of him. The world will be his and his alone.”
Jada finally returned with Gary. She locked the door behind them.
“What’s going on, Mr. Redmann? Jada mentioned you wanted to see me?” He surveyed the room, ignoring the screaming man on the other side of the glass. “I’ve never been back here before.”
“That’s because I never trusted you, Gary,” Redmann said. “Had I known you were going to be an informer for Dickie Munsher, I would have done this long ago.”
He gestured toward the cross-shaped table. But it was more than a table. It was a gothic-looking contraption with glass canisters filled with yellow and green liquids. It was dark science. A horror movie death machine.
Not sure why I should be surprised. Everything about Redmann reminded me of a horror movie.
“I need a Forever Person to power the machine,” Redmann said. “You will have to do for now.”
Gary tried to run, but Shadrach seized his throat and hammered him down on the table. Jada locked the wrist, ankle, and belt restraints.
She reached for the metal arm suspended above the table. A large steel spike was fastened to the end. She plunged it into Gary’s heart.
He screamed.
Attaching several more tubes into his ribs, she flipped a large switch. The machine began to pump. Archaic tubes pumped the yellow and green liquids through the spike needle into Gary’s flesh.
Gary’s screams were legendary.
Redmann nodded to Zac, who sat down at the computer and brought something up on the monitors.
“Our last specimen was both a renowned success and an epic failure,” Redmann said. “She left us. But each test brings us closer. In the beginning, The Presence could only possess a single mind for a short time. Now, he has a body. Mr. Ivy, watch to see how far we have come.”
I had a feeling that the specimen he was talking about was Karen Bell. A revelation dawned on me that she wasn’t trying to hurt Maya on the road when she attacked. She was trying to protect her.
From Jada.
But it sounded like Karen wasn’t under Redmann’s control like Shadrach was. At least, that was my hope. Maybe Redmann considered her a failure because her will was too strong, not allowing The Presence to completely take over.
When Zac pressed the last button, the lights in the chamber dimmed.
The room flickered alive with green and yellow light. Something formed on the ceiling, allowing the light to spill through. Some kind of distortion. The cop shook his head in denial. He cried out for help.
Even if I shot the glass, it looked several inches thick. And was most likely bullet-proof, given this was a war bunker.
I could race into the hall and open the door, but I would never be able to get past Shadrach and free the man in time. At least, not before whatever was about to happen—
Happened.
The lights within the chamber grew so bright, I had to turn away. When the brightness dimmed, the chamber was filled—
—with outer space.
With endless darkness, sparkling stars, and space dust. But it was squirming. The blackness wasn’t empty space. It was filled with something. Something that moved. Something alive.
It wasn’t space at all.
It was The Presence.
Bleeding into our universe.
Chapter 27
The Gate
The Presence was from a dark and cosmic universe seeping into our reality. Bright lights shimmered on the ceiling. It was a portal, a structural weakness in the fabric of reality.
From the portal dropped tentacles twice the length of a man. Not just tentacles, but organic shapes of limbs I couldn’t begin to describe. Some were dark violet tendrils, while others were reddish-blue insect legs with pinchers or snaking vertebrae with translucent vein-infested sacs.
A swarm of these alien limbs spilled from the other universe. Dark tentacles slithered in the room, trying to feel around for the police officer. Trying to find its food.
There was something familiar about the entity I couldn’t place my finger on. But somehow, I had seen it before.
The police officer screamed until he was hoarse, pounding the glass. My eye twitched. And my willpower was used up in those goddamn underground caves fighting off bad memories that talked back. A man can only take so much.
I raised the Beretta and put five rounds into the glass before my clip was almost empty. Shadrach ripped the gun from my fingers and chucked it across the room. Just as I had guessed, the bullet holes did jack squat. A few cracks in the glass, but nothing that could save the victim.
Redmann peered at me from the corner of his eye. “You can’t save him, Mr. Ivy,” he said. “His fate is sealed. His destiny has been written.”
A humanoid creature lowered from the mess of limbs and cosmic light on the ceiling. It had two arms, two legs, and a head. But that’s as close as it resembled any living thing known to man.
Redmann placed his palm on the glass. “Hello… Meshach,” he said.
“You can’t free that thing, Redmann,” I said. “It will infest the world.”
“He’s not infesting the world, he’s liberating it. He will no longer need to create Primitives in order to evolve. He’ll be able to replicate, turning every human being into the one thing he wants more of: himself.”
I growled. “It will duplicate like a virus.”
“Not a virus, Mr. Ivy,” he said. “A cure. A cure for humanity. Humanity with a hive mind. His mind. Finally, we will have unity on Earth. World peace in an instant. How else can the Lord know himself but to experience himself?”
My gaze flew to the door. Shadrach was guarding it.
I whispered to Augie and Maya. “I’ll distract the bodyguard, you two get out of here. Take the truck and leave.” I glanced at my watch. There was one hour left before the bomb went off. “We’re almost out of time.”
Maya whispered, “What about you?”
“I’m going to kill every one of these fuckers.”
The cop choked to death as slimy black tentacles spewed from Meshach’s mouth into his. When the beast was done, the limbs from the ceiling took hold of Meshach and pulled it back into the portal. Back into its universe.
The officer collapsed. His body convulsed. When the seizure stopped, he surprisingly made it to his feet. And stumbled toward us.
His face crashed against the glass wall. Dark drool and mucous smeared the glass. Staring into me, his eyes liquefied and ran down his face. A small black tentacle spilled from an eye socket.
Upon seeing this utter horror, I remembered where I saw the beast before.
It wasn’t long ago that I killed a Forever Person hybrid. His face formed into tentacles similar to those belonging to this beast.
And when Poe summoned a demon through an empty vessel, it came from a vastly different universe. It grew new limbs and tentacles with every wound I gave it. Similar to these limbs. Similar to the three eyeballs that sprouted on Shadrach’s face. It wasn’t just any creature Poe summoned. It was this one.
Poe summoned The Presence.
And in this moment, it was transforming an innocent man into another version of itself. Like it did with Karen.
If this was evolution, I wanted nothing to do with it.
“I’ve seen enough,” I said, flipping out the butterfly knife. I charged Redmann. As the blade came down on him, Jada jumped between us and grabbed my wrist.
The blade sliced
Redmann’s throat before Jada practically ripped my arm from its socket. Redmann’s hand went to his throat, but due to Jada’s interference, I didn’t get a good enough reach. The wound was surface level. There was blood, but it was barely a nick.
“You can’t hurt him,” she said, plowing her knuckles into my jaw. For a little girl, she packed a wallop.
She hammered her other fist into my sternum. I felt the crack and was hurled across the room. I landed hard. Rolling to my knees, I coughed blood.
Shadrach charged me. Already on the floor, I was vulnerable. Shadrach’s meaty fingers grappled the back of my neck and rammed my face to the floor, nearly causing me to pass out. Crouched over me, it held me there, immobilizing me from causing further damage to Redmann.
Jada touched Redmann and stared at him. She was trying to heal him.
Maya snatched Jada’s arm, pulling her away. “Jada, stop this,” she said. “We can’t let that creature get out and destroy the world.”
“The Presence won’t destroy the world, Maya, it will save it,” she said. “He’s our Evolving Lord.”
Maya scrunched her face in disbelief. “Ivy was right,” she said. “You’re one batshit crazy bitch. That’s strike three.” She landed a blow into Jada’s nose.
Augie cracked his knuckles and jumped up and down like he was prepping for a morning jog.
“Showtime,” he said, whipping out the demon blade. It launched from his hand and whizzed through the air like a bullet, impaling the beast’s skull right between the eyes.
Shadrach roared in agony. Maybe it could feel pain after all. The beast staggered back, giving me leeway to roll to my feet. I grabbed the handle of the demon blade and drove it further into the monster’s brain.
I peered at Augie. “Get Maya and Zac out of here.”
Augie threw the door open. Maya was entangled in battle with Jada. And she was holding her own.
I slipped the butterfly knife from my pocket and tossed it to her. She caught it. The blade danced in her hand and straight into Jada’s eyeball.
I returned to Shadrach and twisted the demon blade in its skull. It growled but rose to its feet.
“Maya, get out of here,” I yelled. “I’ll hold them off—”
Shadrach sucker-punched me with a severe blow. I lost hold of the blade and toppled across the room. Crashing into the wall, my skull was on fire. My head tightened as high-pitched ringing sliced through my brain.
Maya and Zac raced for the door, but Shadrach snared her arm.
Augie ripped the demon blade from Shadrach’s skull and brought it down on the monster’s wrist, nearly severing it in two. The beast jerked away in shock as tendons tore from its wrist. Though attached to its master by only strands of flesh, the hand was still gripping Maya’s arm.
Maya ripped it off. “Gross.”
Shadrach raised its arm, its hand a loose piece of meat swinging back and forth on slivers of tendon and skin. It grabbed the hand and yanked it off, dropping it to the floor. Before the beast regained its focus on us, I tackled it and brought it down hard.
With its good hand, it gripped my throat and hoisted me into the air. The beast hammered my face into the glass wall. With a second blow, the glass cracked into spiderwebs.
I tried to break its grip but couldn’t. Not from this position.
Shadrach raised its severed stump to my face. A demon’s claw grew from the wrist. Not one, but three. Several hands and talons grew from the flesh, each one unique and belonging to a different monster entirely. Now he had three hands where he once had one. This son of a bitch was an abomination.
Maya froze at the door. “Ivy—”
“Go,” I said. “That’s an order.” Augie pulled her away as the beast wailed its fist into the back of my head. Trying to loosen my brain from my skull.
It tossed me to the floor. Blood gushed down my face. Blood spilled into my eye. I could barely see. I think my cheekbone was broken.
Jada was only a few yards away, screaming, trying to get the knife out of her eye. Behind her, Redmann was against the wall, holding his bleeding neck. Good. She didn’t heal him all the way before Maya struck her ass.
Reaching out, I ripped the blade from Jada’s face. Her eyeball came with it.
I spun to one knee and I sliced the blade across Shadrach’s heel, slicing the Achilles tendon. The beast dropped hard.
The monster fumbled to get up, grabbing my leg and pulling me closer. Wrapping its massive hand around my ribs, it squeezed.
CRACK. CRACKLE. CRACK!
My ribs snapped one by one but I didn’t give that fucker the satisfaction of a scream. Instead, I spit blood in his eye. His cluster of three eyes to be exact.
Using all my body weight, I pressed the blade into the hand that grabbed me, sawing through several fingers. The beast didn’t seem to notice as fresh, new appendages sprouted from the limbs.
I pounded my fist into its trio of eyes and got to my feet. It grabbed my ankle. My eye caught the machine that filled Gary with green and yellow shit. The spike needle was still in his heart. I slid it out and raised it high.
Peering down on the beast, I said, “You’re extinct, mother-fucker.”
I drove that damn needle into Shadrach’s skull and flipped the switch. Green and yellow fluid coursed through the hoses, filling the ungodly monster with whatever shit was in the jars.
Green and yellow fluid poured from Shadrach’s eyes, nose, and mouth like he was a goddamn fountainhead.
Leaning against Gary’s dead body, I touched the back of my head. I had a concussion. Blood ran over my eyes and into my mouth.
Everything was blurry. But Jada and Redmann were gone.
I stumbled out of the room, a bloody mess of flesh and bone. I made it to the catwalk before toppling to the rail. I attempted to regain my balance, but the pulsing in my head was an African drum beat. An explosion went off in my skull. The whole room was moving.
I tried to steady myself but tumbled down the metal stairs to the first floor. My face broke my fall.
My nose was running. And I tasted a salty liquid in my mouth with a hint of metal. Most likely spinal fluid. Shit. I probably had a brain bleed.
I felt like I was drowning. Like I was suffocating with quick, choppy breaths. One of my lungs must have collapsed. The breathing would only get worse. I needed to calm myself and focus. Change my breathing pattern and keep on top of it. And for God’s sake, not run anymore marathons around this goddamn Island.
The weight of the floor pressed through my cracked sternum, forcing blood to wash over my tongue.
I didn’t want to die this way: in a crazy cult alternate dimension where insane maniacs worshiped a dark entity that chewed through souls, but you know what they say: when it’s your time to go, it’s your time to go.
And my time was up.
Chapter 28
Let There Be Light
I awoke to an empty room. I sat up on the floor. The world around me was out of focus. I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear. A fireplace crackled to the right. Rain tapped against a window on the left. Somehow, I made it to my cabin.
I glanced at my feet. Someone was in the distance, but the image was fuzzy. I tried to focus but wasn’t able to. The figure approached me and when it finally came into view, it was my friend, Sam, a Native American shaman of nearly sixty finely aged years. He cast a warm smile. A wave of comfort swept over me. But like every other person in this godforsaken place, it wasn’t Sam—
It was The Presence.
“Get the hell out of my head, monster,” I said.
“Is that any way to talk to an old friend?”
I walked past him, surveying the area. There was no sign of Redmann or the others. “You’re not my friend,” I said. “You’re an evil fucker from a hostile universe.”
“You sound like my ex-wife,” he said. “It really is me, Sol. Why would you think it’s not?”
“Because you’re a dickhead shape-shifter,” I said. “Yo
u like to get in my mind to screw with me. I’m done with you.”
“I would totally love to hear the whole story here,” he said. “But it is me, Sol. I’m dream-walking right now.”
I looked in my hands. They were vivid. Too vivid. Like a 4K television screen, the image was much too crisp and clear. Realer than real life. I glanced at the wall, scanning for a clock. When I found it, the numbers were scrambled backwards. He was telling the truth. I was dreaming.
I sighed. “Goddammit.”
“Maybe you were expecting a hot blonde with big gazongas? Sorry to disappoint.”
“I’m glad you’re here, Sam. So to speak.”
“Where is here?” he asked, looking around the room. “It was hard as hell to find you. Normally I can lock on to your soul-mark, but your signature is weak. Like something is blocking me. This place is bad juju, my friend. Something is here that doesn’t belong in our world. I can feel it.”
“You think?” I said, raising an eyebrow. “I’m guessing you’re probably nice and cozy in your bungalow back home?”
“You guess correctly,” he said.
“You’re getting soft in your old age.”
“I wouldn’t disagree,” he said, smiling. “Where are you located?”
“Still in Chicago, technically. There’s a point where the veil thins. I’m in a pocket.”
“That would explain why your signal is fuzzy,” he said. “I feel like you’re on the other side of the universe. It doesn’t feel like Earth at all.”
“Because it isn’t. At least, not our Earth. There’s a creature trying to bleed over into our world, Sam. One of Blackwell’s men is trying to free him. You need to find this veil. My truck is sitting outside it. The veil only thins during twilight. Dawn and dusk are the only times you can cross over.”
“Why do I sense an impending doom in the air?”
“There’s an evil celestial being trying to enter our world. And a nuclear bomb set to a timer that’s about to explode.” I glanced at the wrist-watch I couldn’t read. “In less than an hour. Give or take.”
Faith of a Monster Killer: Killing Forever Book 3 Page 16