by Lee Isserow
41
Their weapons were useless
TACLOBAN CITY, PHILIPPINES
They were no strangers to destruction in Tacloban. The city itself had only just about got back up and running after a typhoon hit it some four years earlier. That storm decimated the infrastructure, over a million homes had been destroyed, at least ten thousand people reported missing or dead.
But finally, things had started getting back to normal.
The losses had been grieved, the repairs had been made, but with no warning of a storm to come, the city once again found itself under assault by water, both from clouds that spontaneously appeared from above, and from the coast. The citizens watched in abject horror as their nightmares were brought to life once again, a mighty surge erupting out of the San Juanico Strait, and something gigantic and dark as night rose into the bay.
Sheet lightning blinded one and all for the briefest of moments, and when the light cleared from their vision, there were hundreds of men and women, each clad in black, standing between the city and the beast. Each of them raised their hands, as if to gesture to the gargantuan monster in a polite request to halt its attempt to incur upon the land. Their request was not adhered to by the thing from the deep, and those same hands frantically whipped through the air. Each of them making the same movements at the same time, as if it were some highly orchestrated flash-mob.
A deep and angry groan cried out, but it was not the creature that was screaming. Cars were being shunted along the Pan-Philippine Highway some two miles away, clearing the San Juanico bridge of innocent mundanes. And the colossal structure, which was over a mile long across the strait, began to lift itself up from the serene blue waters it had stood in for over fifty years.
The roar of contorting metal, and crunch of concrete did not seem to perturb the leviathan that heard bursts forth from the ocean, it paid no mind to the destruction that was occurring far beyond its point of arrival. It loomed over the men and women that continued to wave their arms about, their fingers operating independently from one another as they manipulated reality to their combined design.
A myriad mouths filled with gleaning teeth snapped and gnashed, salivating at the grand buffet that had been laid out for its arrival upon the shore. Its great mass contorted, and it lashed out with its tentacles in an attempt to grab hold of the snacks that had been provided. The long appendages slammed against the air, hitting a barrier that had been close to invisible, prismatic light dancing at the site of the impact. It growled, and attempted to attack again, but still its strikes were unable to pass through the magickal wall that had been erected.
It leaned back, its entire bulk hurtling back down to the water, sending a tidal wave washing across the barrier. The tentacles at its sides lashed under the surface, propelling it away from the place it had come to land. It could recall how its kin were smote, held in place by such castings, and it was going to find another spot from which to take the city, one which was less defended.
But the magickians would not let that happen.
Concrete cascaded into the ocean, and the beast found itself coming to a wall that had not been there when it first swum up the strait. It attempted to turn to its left, and another wall was erected, as more of the bridge was driven under the water. Its infuriated roars were gargled, but all upon the land could hear them, and knew it would not take long for the creature to dig down through the silt below, and they were reserving the last of the concrete to block its path to the right, and cage its rear, to stop it from returning to shore.
At Faith's command, the metal of the bridge was brought though the air, hanging above the prison they had made for the beast. It glowed white-hot, as every single magickian on the beach ploughed their intent into manipulating the molecules. Girder upon girder hovered over the concrete cell, and as the tide began to undulate from hurried movement of digging at the bottom of the bay, he sent the signal.
The spears of semi-molten metal charged into the depths, sending great plumes of steam rising up high into the air. The water should have cooled them―but the magickians had commandeered their molecules too, and were sending the temperature soaring, boiling, then beyond boiling, until the creature was certain to be dead.
Faith gave pats on the back to those that were close to him, and a cry of “good work” to the others. There were still many of these invaders left to take down, but their current strategy―and constant evolution of that strategy―appeared to be working. There would be much devastation to fix when this was over. . . but was a concern that could be left until the last of the damn things was dead.
“Tali, take us to the next location,” he growled.
*
In the Epicentre, Tali was pouring over the map and news feeds, trying to work out which of the myriad beasts was to be next on their hit list. There were still so many, and a vast number of those had already made it onto the land. Hundreds of thousands of mundanes had died, hundreds of thousands more might still die.
The non-magickal residents of the Natural World were not prepared for an attack on this scale, certainly not one of this kind. The governments had spent a decade so concerned about incursions from other mundane nations, that their weapons were useless for creatures such as these. Perhaps, she thought to herself, in future there should be a mandate that each and every coastline should be warded. . . But of course, that would mean that the Circle themselves would be unable to perform magick whilst on the beaches―and that was the only thing that had been staving off the assaults thus far.
A report caught her attention. Silos across America had been activated. The state of emergency that had been declared was reaching the only logical conclusion that mundanes could think of when faced with a threat. They were going to attempt to destroy the creatures themselves. . . by nuking the places they had come ashore.
“I need to send you back to America,” she told Faith. “You've got to speak to the President, tell him not to launch his nuclear weapons. . .”
“He wants to do bloody what?”
“There are forty of the big ones coming to ground, still hundreds of the little bastards. . . He's going to nuke his own country to try to wipe them out.”
She could feel the fear ripple through him on the call. It was the same fear she was feeling. One nuclear blast would be hard enough to un-write from reality, but several of them would be near to impossible. The deaths from the resulting fallout could not be undone, they'd struggle to contain or dissipate any radiation in the air. . . And if America led the charge with a nuclear assault, it would only be a matter of time before other countries launched their weapons in an attempt to curb the creatures' attack.
“Do it,” he grunted, “but get everyone else to the next site.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
She sent the message through to Three, who were already ahead of her. The call with Faith dropped as he was relocated, and she looked out over the map for the next location to send the troops. The most highly populated area that was besieged looked like it was Mumbai. Another mass mesmerisation was going to be needed, and she warned the operatives before she sent word to Three. There were four of the damn things there, each of which had gone up the Mithri River and had come to land at different parts in the heart of the city. With almost nineteen million people in the vicinity, this was going to be a nightmare to contain.
But, she resolved, they fought nightmares almost every bloody day. And they had a strategy that was working. All they could hope, was that somehow, the creatures hadn't yet become immune to searing metal. . .
42
Nuclear holocaust
WHITE HOUSE, UNITED STATES
“Mr President,” Faith growled, with a polite nod to the man behind the desk.
The president practically fell from his chair as he leapt back with shock. “Who are you? How did you get here? Where's my security?”
There were other men in the room, four of them, who came towards Faith with objections to his presence, ap
pearing from nowhere as he did, interrupting whilst they were in the midst of a briefing. Before they could restrain him, he raised his closed fist, and the tiniest puff of air emanated out. In an instant, their pupils shrunk to the size of pinpricks, and their minds were blank. They stood, motionless, and Faith turned back to the president, who was frantically pressing buttons on his phone, desperate to call someone in to help.
“Mister President, I'm not here to hurt you.”
“Security! I need security in here!”
“I'm here to ask you to change your mind regarding the nuclear attack you're about to make on your own bloody country.”
“Who are you? MI5? Is this your doing? The Brits, trying to. . . destabilise America? You want our oil, don't you―”
“Nobody wants your blood oil, idiot. I want you to not kill millions of your own people. . . “
“This is some biology experiment, isn't it! GM crops. . . I knew we shouldn't have approved them. . . It's gene splicing and climate science and hadron colliders and―”
“Shut up!” Faith barked, mesmerising the president, as he had done to the others in the room. He muttered to himself “Just naming bloody science things. . . I don't even know where to begin. . .“ He took a breath, and stared the terrified septuagenarian down. It was clear that he was not composed enough to be able to deal with the truth of the Natural World as his predecessors had. As much as the revelation of magick had confused them or instilled fear at first, they quickly understood that the Circle were there to help. This man wasn't even close to being able to grasp such facts.
He held back his disdain, and gave the President instructions on how to proceed.
“You will call off the nuclear assault. You're going to forget the bloody codes to them, and never use them again, do you hear?”
“. . . yes. . . “
Faith gestured to call Tali for a teleport out, then stopped himself. Might as well do some good while he was there, he figured.
“Also, every human being is equal, no matter of the size of their bank accounts. No one person deserves anything more than any other. And gender, race, sexuality, religion, education, it's all the same. People are just bloody people, nobody should be discriminated against. And no more nepotism, meritocracy all the way from here on out. You hear me?”
“. . . yes. . .”
“Good.” He cast to call Tali for a teleport or door, but found that he couldn't get through to her.
“What the bloody hell. . .” He grunted.
With a roll of his eyes, and no idea where the troops had been sent next, he conjured a door back to the Epicentre. But despite having staved off nuclear holocaust across the Americas, he was in no way prepared for what he would discover once he stepped through. . .
43
Another way
EPICENTRE, THE CIRCLE
Tali was in a frantic rush around the Epicentre, grabbing scrying pools from every desk and every other operator. Fifty of them were now hovering in the air around her desk, and each and every one was showing the same thing.
“Do you not answer bloody calls any more?” Faith growled, as he stepped through the door.
“Little busy. . .”
She cast over another dish and placed it in the air, zooming in past the Eiffel Tower to the scene below.
“Are there more in Paris?“
“No. . .”
She zoomed the picture in closer and closer, until she was close enough to see the blood of one of the creatures.
“What the. . . the bloody hell. . .?” Faith stammered, his eyes wide as he stared in horror.
The dark slime that was dripping out of the beast was moving of its own accord. It was undulating to a rhythm, something moving under large pustules that were bubbling out from the sludge.
“It's happening all over. . .” Tali said, as she gestured to the other scrying pools, each of them at a different location, each of the bloody boils pictured with them getting larger and larger as time marched on and they were left unattended.
“What is this? They're still alive?”
“They're not alive. . . Their blood is alive. . . Or, something in the blood. . .“
The pustules on the scrying pool to the far left burst open, and a dark swarm thrashed out, darting this way and that as it got accustomed to the air it flew in.
“What the hell. . .”
Tali cast over the pool and commanded it to follow the swarm wherever it went. As the view wound and weaved its way through the air, she zoomed in closer and closer, until they could see it at the microbial level, and discovered what was making the dark, sentient cloud.
“My gods. . .” Faith gasped.
“We've got to tell everyone, get them to find another way to deal with these damn things. . . they can't make them bleed, can't let them spit, or ooze blood anywhere!” She gestured to make a call as Faith stared in horror at the close-up view on the scrying pool.
The clouds were composed of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of microscopic versions of the creatures they had been fighting on the beaches. They were no longer dealing with a hive of large and larger 'thulus. The war against the Natural World was now airborne.
44
To continue to feed
The operatives on the ground were split into teams and relocated around the world to deal with the new strain of the enemy.
As much as the full size creatures and their gargantuan cousins were ravaging cities, the mundane population could at least see them coming, they could run from them. . . The swarms of microscopic creatures was not going to be so easy to avoid. They were fast, whipping through the air in the blink of an eye, and they were smart, they did not fall to easy distractions like a moth to the flame.
At every location the operatives had been dispatched to, liquid fire tore through the air. If these tiny fiends were anything like the larger versions, they could be melted down―and given their smaller mass and surface area, there was a chance that they would fizzle up with a fraction of the effort required to defeat their full-size kin.
Reports were coming in from Pakistan―they had successfully disposed of two of the swarms that had started preying upon the city. . . but the others were harder to pin down.
The same was true with those in Paris, Florida and beyond. The bug-thulus were as connected to one another as the larger creatures, and they were learning from the death of their brethren. But that was not all the magickians observed. . . It seemed as though they were able to predict even before heat was generated by a casting―as if they had the same visual acuity as that of a fly: able to see upwards of three-thousand frames a second, witnessing the actions of those that attacked them as if they were in slow-motion.
Whereas their larger cousins were slow, having been born of water and forced to learn, to adapt and function on land, the microscopic offspring had been born on land. And from what the magickians were reporting, it appeared as though they had somehow evolved specifically for existing in the air.
A scream shot out across the call, and Tali cycled through the views on the scrying pools until she found its source. A team was looking around wildly, they too were trying to find where the scream was coming from. Their movements came to a dead stop, all of them staring at one of their number.
Tali couldn't make out who it was―their face was obscured by a swarm that had caught him by surprise. “Somebody do something!” she shouted, but her order went ignored.
None of those watching the horror play out felt as though they could attempt to intervene, not without injuring―or likely killing―their comrade.
“Lock it in a barrier, starve it of oxygen,” Faith grunted.
One of the team burst into action, followed by another as they did what they had been told―a barrier went up, barely visible glimmers of light distorting on its surface. Then the air was sucked from within it. Their friend would be knocked out too. . . but at least there was the hope that it would distract the creatures long enough to free him from
their assault.
The swarm did not seem to be inhibited by the lack of oxygen―if anything, they moved faster, with more fervour, their motions all the more frantic. The dark mass left the magickian's face and flew up above him. His skin was raw and bloody, chewed down to the bone. He stared out with wide eyes, the eyelids gone, his mouth unable to emote for what little was left of his lips. He looked so pained, so terrified, that Tali wished they could just put him out of his misery.
But it was not to be them that took his life.
In a lightning-quick flash, the swarm descended. They funnelled in through his nose and mouth, burrowed into his ears and crawled under his eyes. He screamed and screamed as the last of the darkness disappeared into his core, and dropped to his knees.
More screams shot out across Tali's periphery as the same thing happened to operatives all around the world. The bugs had learned that they could infiltrate their attackers, devour them from the inside, and they appeared to be doing just that.
She wanted to call an evac, wanted desperately to pull everyone in the field out and start this whole damn day again from the beginning. . . But she couldn't. She wouldn't. The swarms might have been devouring their people―but they were also placing themselves in captivity.
It seemed as though Faith was on the same page, thinking the same grizzly thought, and she stood back as he took control of the operation, and spoke to his troops on the ground.
“I don't say this lightly. . . And I wish their was any other way we could progress. . . But I honestly don't think there is. . . Not right now, with this new strain of the bastards. . .” He slammed his fist on the desk, grit his teeth and growled out an angry sigh. “Take a moment to say goodbye. . . then. . . light them up.”