by Michael Todd
Subversive Giants
War Of The Damned™ Book Six
Michael Todd
Michael Anderle
Laurie Starkey
Subversive Giants (this book) is a work of fiction.
All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Sometimes both.
Copyright © 2018 Michael Todd, Michael Anderle, and Laurie Starkey
Cover by Ryn Katryn Digital Art
Cover copyright © LMBPN Publishing
A Michael Anderle Production
LMBPN Publishing supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
The distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
LMBPN Publishing
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Las Vegas, NV 89109
First US edition, September 2018
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Author Notes - Michael Anderle
Author Notes - Laurie Starkey
Connect with Michael Todd
Books by Michael Todd
Books written as Michael Anderle
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Dedication
To Family, Friends and
Those Who Love
to Read.
May We All Enjoy Grace
to Live the Life We Are
Called.
1
Tiamat was gravely injured. It was a new experience for her. She lay snarling and growling on the hard lava stones of hell. This was not her dimension and not where she was supposed to be. Moloch and Baal had had an agreement with her from the beginning. When she was done with the work they had asked her to do, they would send her back home. However, demons weren’t the best at keeping their words.
“You need to release me. I belong somewhere else. You know this,” Tiamat growled.
Baal looked at Moloch and shrugged. “I’m still stuck on what the fuck just happened.”
Moloch snorted. “You and me both. I couldn’t believe my eyes when Katie pulled Lilith out of her body.”
Baal scratched his head. “Not just that, but Lilith took on her own body. She used all the magic she had here in hell before she was sent topside. That’s not how it works. A human isn’t supposed to be able to pull their demon out of them. They’re not supposed to survive it, anyway.”
Moloch looked down at Tiamat. She was beginning to pant, and blood was seeping out the side of her drooping dragon jowls. “Just when we thought we had seen it all? She walked over and took that Angel girl back to Earth through her own portal. She used all her energy here in hell, and as far as I understood, the power she had here doesn’t necessarily transfer to Earth. If it had, we would’ve seen a lot more frozen demons over the last couple of years.”
“Shit, I don’t even remember her having that power in hell when she was here. It’s not like we demons really like the cold. You would think the king would have put a stop to that immediately.” Baal shook his head, completely exasperated.
Tiamat coughed blood. “I saw it from you before, and you did it again. You underestimated this demon. I underestimated her human and how ballsy she was. Of course, I wasn’t aware that I would be facing an angel while on Earth. Just a note—next time you look for a Leviathan to do your dirty work for you, you might want to let them know the whole story.”
Moloch ignored Tiamat’s response. “That bitch flew right through the portal and didn’t even care that it snapped shut behind her. I swear, this shit’s getting old.”
Baal put his large, scaled foot on top of a frozen demon and rolled him over. He snarled as he looked down at the face frozen in fear. “We aren’t even safe within our own walls of hell. The bitch started a goddamned blizzard down here. Now look at this fucking mess. These were good demons, and now we have a pile of fucking demonsicles.”
Moloch took in the mass of frozen demons still thawing on the floor of hell. Some of them were half-turned to dust and half-frozen in a sheet of ice. Others were still kicking and starting to break through the ice that surrounded them.
He wrinkled his nose. “There’s nothing worse than the smell of wet demon. The sons of bitches don’t keep themselves clean for anything. It’s not like one of those human fucking dog pens.”
Baal chuckled. “Well, now they’re clean. If they can free themselves before they fucking die. I’m half-tempted to toss them into the lava and start over from scratch. There’s plenty of humans up there that belong down here. We can build a different kind of army.”
Moloch sighed. “There’s no point in wasting good demons. Let them thaw and think about what they’ve managed to get themselves into. It’s way too fucking hot for ice to last long down here.”
Baal pulled his leg back and punted a frozen head. It sizzled when it landed in a stream of lava a hundred feet away. “The rest of this shit needs to be moved to the lava pits. I don’t want to step in a pile of demon dust in the middle of the night when I look for a snack.”
Moloch swatted Baal hard on the shoulder. “Next time I talk shit about Lilith, make sure she’s still in her meatsack’s body. I don’t want to talk to her personally.”
Baal put his hands on his hips and looked around. “No shit.”
“I hate to break up this touching moment between the two of you, but you need to release me,” Tiamat snarled.
Moloch and Baal turned to the giant beaten Leviathan. A small runt of a demon had become a little too curious. He inched closer to her, and she snapped at him and missed. The demon jeered, but Tiamat’s tongue lashed out, wrapped around the demon and dragged it between her jaws. She pulverized the demon with her vicious teeth. Baal and Moloch glanced at each other,
and both took a big step backward, out of Tiamat’s range.
Baal mused, “She did her goddamned job. You know I’m not one who keeps my word. Kind of messes with my reputation, but I don’t want her getting better down here. You know there’s only one of us who can control a Leviathan in hell.”
Moloch scoffed. “If you haven’t noticed, it looks like she’s about to bite the dust.”
Several smaller demons started to gather around her. She swished her tail violently, smacking several off into the distance. Baal shrugged his shoulders. “If it were me, I might just let the demons kill her. Then you’d have a huge Leviathan soul chained in hell. That could come in really useful in the future.”
Moloch waved his large, taloned hand. “There are six more. We don’t go back on our word. I know most demons do, but remember that we hold ourselves to a higher standard. We were looked upon by Lucifer himself. He may be a demon, but he keeps his word almost every single time and expects us to as well.”
Baal conceded the point. “I suppose you’re right. The last thing I want to do is go through all that we went through today and then have to face an angry Lucifer. I need a vacation, a bowl of fresh puppies, and some wench to rub my tired feet.”
Moloch chuckled. “I feel sorry for whatever soul you have rub your feet. I don’t care what crimes they committed during life.”
Baal raised a gnarled and knobby foot. “Hey! I take care of these beauties. All the lava and hot rocks really take a toll.”
Moloch shook his head. “Come on, let’s get this Leviathan back Earth-side so we can wash our hands of it. Doesn’t look like she’s gonna last much longer.”
Moloch turned toward Tiamat and whistled in her direction. She grumbled and carefully lifted her head off the ground, barely able to move. The two demons slowly opened a gate right next to her. She took her time getting to her feet as they watched impatiently.
Baal looked down at his fingernails. “Anytime today, beast. I may have eternity down here, but that doesn’t mean I want to spend it with you.”
“I just don’t understand what is taking so long,” the general muttered as he looked out the window on the observation deck of the ship.
The captain peered at the island and tried to calm the general. “Sometimes these things take time. That was a big motherfucker.”
“Anything on the video surveillance?” The general walked over and stared at the screen.
The petty officer adjusted the clarity of the screen and scanned the island. The trees swayed gently in the breeze, and water lapped quietly against the shore. Other than that, there was no sign of Katie or the Leviathan anywhere. The petty officer slowly shook his head, and the general rubbed his forehead. “It’s been an hour since we’ve seen either one of them. We’ve got no view of them, no view of the Leviathan, and no idea whether we should be sending in more forces. Captain, what do you think we should do next?”
The captain took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his neck. “At this point, we have to assume someone is still left over there, whether it’s the Leviathan or Katie. We can’t sit by and do nothing. Our pants are down, here. I suggest we go ahead and send in the SEALs. They’ve been locked and loaded and ready to go since before this mission started. I can have them here within minutes.”
The general walked back to the window and rubbed his chin. “I would hate for anyone else to get killed because I’m impatient. I’ve never seen Katie take on a demon and not be done in under an hour. She wouldn’t just be hiding out there, that’s for sure.”
The captain cleared his throat and stepped closer to the general. He lowered his voice. “You have to be willing to entertain the possibility that Katie didn’t make it out of this one. I know it’s not something you want to think about, but we have to consider the greater good here. We don’t have to send the SEALs onto the beach, but we can get them started in that direction so that if we need to deploy them, they’re already on their mark.”
The general wanted to argue, but the captain made a good point. “All right. Get them on their boats and start them in that direction, but have them keep their weapons down and watch their backs at all times.”
The captain nodded astutely. “Petty officer, call the lower deck and tell the SEAL team it’s a go.”
The SEALs gathered their gear and loaded it into the rigid-hulled inflatable boats the ship lowered into the water below. The captain and the general went down to the deck and watched as the SEALs sped off in their RHIBs toward the island. The ship was fairly far away, but the teams moved fast and with purpose. As they drew closer to the island, they began to slow down.
The general and the captain made their way back to the observation deck and waited for word. When the SEALs were a few hundred yards from the beach, they radioed in. “We are going to move in closer. There’s some serious damage to the beach, the woods around it, and a plateau of rocks above. We don’t see any sign of the Leviathan or the merc.”
The captain took the radio. “Go ahead, but move carefully, and at the first sign of anything, move back.”
The SEALs went onto the beach, and the general and captain watched nervously from the ship. The phone rang, and one of the seamen answered it. “General, it’s for you.”
The general cleared his throat and walked to take the phone. “Yes?”
“General, this is Timothy from Katie’s base. I tried your cell phone, but it went straight to voicemail.”
The general pulled out his cell and realized there was no service way out there on the ocean. “I’m on the ship watching the island. No sign of Katie.”
“That’s what I’m calling about. There’s a new portal, and it’s about to open right there on that island. If you have men there, you might want to get them off.”
The general dropped the phone to his side and called to the captain, “Get your men out of there. There’s a portal opening!”
The captain immediately grabbed the radio and called the SEAL team’s lead officer. “A portal is opening. I repeat, a portal is opening. Get your asses off that island!”
The lead officer replied, “Copy that. Getting in the boats now.”
The SEALs jumped in their boats and headed away from the island. When they were about a half a mile off, the deep, thundering rip of a portal opening echoed across the water. They slowed their boats and watched a tired and beaten Tiamat limp through the hole. She shook her body and stumbled into the sand, squinting at the bright sun overhead.
The team lead slowly pulled the radio to his mouth and whispered, “Fire on her. Repeat, fire on her. It’s the Leviathan, and she’s alone and badly injured. Take her down. It’s your only chance!”
The team sat quietly in the boat, staring back at the ships wondering if they had gotten the message. Suddenly, the large weapons on the top of the ship began to rotate to point directly at Tiamat. The SEALs covered their ears and crouched in the boat as the weapons went off, sending rockets straight at the Leviathan. She looked up just as one of them shot across the sand.
“Oh, shit.” The rocket struck her and threw her to the ground. Before she could rise, dozens of missiles pummeled her already broken body, blowing her to shit.
The portal behind her started to close.
Moloch and Baal watched through it and chuckled as mounds of flesh blew off the Leviathan and into the ocean. Moloch stuck out his fist and Baal bumped it, both of them laughing hard.
Baal shrugged his shoulders. “Hey, we honored our word. We took good care of her.”
Moloch snickered. “I knew the humans would be on the other side ready to beat the balls off her. I’m just surprised it wasn’t Lilith and Katie getting revenge.”
Baal wrinkled his nose. “I’m kind of glad it wasn’t. I don’t want a replay of what just happened. I really hate ice.”
Moloch shrugged. “From the looks of it, the angel wasn’t doing so well, and Pandora probably lost all her strength when she exited the portal. I’m not very worried about those two, at
least not for a couple of days. They’ll be back, sure. Until then, we get to watch the show from the sidelines.”
A huge explosion rocked the small island, and the last chunks of Leviathan were blown every which way. Baal and Moloch both jumped back, a chunk of leathery skin barely missing them as it spiraled into the gate. Baal flicked a piece of flesh off his arm. “They didn’t hold back, either. They gave her everything they had.”
Moloch laughed loudly. “Did you see her body explode? Damn! I’m tempted to go get her skull later.”
2
Katie groaned, her head throbbing. Slowly, her focus started to align. She realized she was on the inside. Pandora had taken over, and Katie was just watching at the moment. That was perfectly fine. She felt like she had been run over by a dozen garbage trucks and then kicked in the stomach by a Leviathan.
Where… Wait, where are we?
Pandora smiled and pulled Katie’s knees up. We are currently on top of a very tall building in the center of New York City. I figured the best thing to do was to hide for a bit. That would give you a chance to get your wits about you. Didn’t want you looking all wobbly and drunk when we are walking around downtown with cameras everywhere.