With a steely eyed gaze, Abernethy said, “Is everyone ready?”
“Wait!” Owen yelled.
Not to be outdone by the Rooster tech, he reached into his manly satchel and pulled out yet another peculiar aerosol can. Vigorously shaking it, he then flickered in and out of existence while circling the group until we were all literally doused in a thick haze of yellow gas.
“What the fuck?” MacCawill barked, as the smoke cleared and we found ourselves all decked out in similar black fatigues and barzel plated body armor.
With an extremely satisfied grin, Owen said, “Now we’re ready, big boss-man. Gotta look the part. Epic, right?”
Strangely pleased by his black kilt and metal breast plate ensemble, Big A said, “Aye, that’ll do, Mr. Trask. Now let’s get to it.”
Exchanging nods as we all stepped through our respective portals to embark on easily the strangest recon mission I’d ever been a part of, I couldn’t help but think that life was so much frigg’n easier when the bad guys were just disgruntled giants, pseudo werewolves, wannabe vampires, and evil bear monster thingies.
Typical.
Chapter 32
“How much time we got left?” I grumbled, as we emerged from another arcane gateway to find ourselves standing in the dark shadows of a trashed building situated on a deserted street corner.
“Twenty-six minutes,” Rooster replied, giving his antique pocket watch a quick glance before sliding it back into his pocket. “Still no word from the rest of the crew and we’ve got two more stops after this.”
“We need to pick up the pace.”
Peering out from our concealed position to take in the smoldering landscape, Double OT asked, “Where the flip are we now? Mordor?”
“We’re in D.C.,” Erin said, pointing at the looming silhouette of the Washington Monument jutting far into night sky about a mile away. “That’s the National Mall across the street.”
“Or what’s left of it,” I muttered, as a stiff, winter breeze blew through the barren panorama.
Holding up a mangled sign that he retrieved from a pile of ash at his feet, Rooster said, “Welcome to the Smithsonian Castle.”
Gazing at the burned out hulk of a building shrouded in an ominous twilight, Owen asked, “You think we’re too late to get a tour, John Boy?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
Carefully scanning the surrounding darkness to find nothing but a desolate landscape highlighted with billowing smoke, ginormous piles of rubble, and burning embers, I muttered, “Place is a damn wasteland. Not a soul in sight. “
“It’s quiet,” Doc murmured, barely above a whisper.
“Too quiet.”
Peering through the collection of flaming dogwood trees lining the once majestic Jefferson Street, Rooster said, “Lucifer’s not here. We should move on to New York.”
“What about the frigg’n monument?” I protested.
Clearly frustrated, he grunted, “This is a waste of time.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Look around, what do you see?”
“A whole lot of flipping nothing,” Double OT chimed in, pulling his manly locks into a tight ponytail.
“Exactly,” Rooster nodded, swiping his fingers across the screen of his nepher phone. “If Lucifer was here there’d be a goddamned army of anakim surrounding this place. Trust me. This is a dead end. Just like the others.”
“Johnny’s got a point, monkey man,” Owen said. “Our next target’s in Central Park. We need to get a move on with our groove on.”
Not entirely convinced but also finding it hard to disagree given the look of things, I said, “Alright. Let’s bug out. Fire up the portal.”
“Wait,” Erin said, still fixated on the five hundred foot obelisk in the near distance, “Something’s — off.”
“I’m off my meds,” Owen said, only half joking. “Does that count?”
Ignoring him, she pointed down the street and said, “Look at the sky around the monument.”
Following her gaze, I focused my Sight and was more than surprised when I picked up on a faint, yet definitive shimmer in the air like it was being turbo charged by an unseen, blazing heat source.
Pointing toward the anomaly, I said, “Doc’s onto something. You seeing that?”
Squinting, Rooster replied, “Son of a bitch. Is that a veil?”
“A frigg’n big one. Looks like it’s covering the entire monument and at least a few hundred meters around it. I think we just found the right obelisk.”
“I’m calling it in,” Rooster said, tapping his ear piece. “The target’s in D.C. I say again — the target’s in Washington, D.C. You guys read me?”
When none of the team replied, I tapped my ear piece and grunted, “Anyone copy that?”
After a brief hiss of static followed by an indecipherable voice, the line just went completely dead like somebody pulled the proverbial plug.
“What happened?” Doc asked.
“Comm’s dead,” Rooster frustratingly replied, pulling the gadget from his ear and tinkering with it. “Skyphos, you read me? Come in, Skyphos. Sweetie, you there?”
After several more failed attempts, he muttered, “We’re cut off from Skyphos. Something’s wrong.”
And it was right about then when an obscure clatter originating from somewhere to our rear caused us to spin around just in time to see an unnaturally pale, hollow-cheeked street person emerge from the shadows pushing an empty grocery cart.
“Zombie!” Double OT screeched. “It’s a mother flipping zombie!”
“He’s not a frigg’n zombie, you asshole,” I grumbled. “He’s homeless.”
“Zombies are homeless, whistlebritches. It’s their signature characteristic. Everybody knows that.”
Barely able to keep himself upright, our unexpected visitor stopped dead in his tracks and just gawked at us with a blank stare.
Carefully approaching the stranger, Doc asked, “Are you okay, sir? Can you speak?”
After a long couple seconds, he whispered, “Yes.”
“Look, buddy,” I said, pulling alongside Doc. “Looks like you had a rough night. We’ll get you somewhere safe, okay?”
“There is no such place,” he slowly murmured, as his piercing, sunken eyes drifted from me to Rooster. “Not anymore.”
Somewhat taken aback by the intensity of his stare, Rooster said, “What are you doing out here?”
After another prolonged pause, he replied, “Waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“To deliver a message. A message … for you, Eóin O’Dargan.”
“Wait, how do you know my name?”
As we all stood there wondering what the hell was going on, our peculiar new friend ripped open his sullied shirt to reveal a gruesome series of Enochian symbols carved into his chest. Judging from the ominous shreds of ripped flesh and streaks of crimson running down his abdomen, it was apparently done with a jagged object.
With an emotionless expression on his weathered face, he produced a small dagger from somewhere within his disheveled clothing and proceeded to run the blade across his neck with unnatural strength.
Effectively cutting his own throat with surgical precision, he fell to his knees and grabbed Rooster’s hand as he locked eyes with him.
In something between a raspy murmur and a gurgling growl he said, “In nomine patris et ortum conquor. The Morning Star commands you. Bring death to his enemies.”
And then he simply collapsed to the cold ground in an oozing puddle of his own blood.
“What just happened?” Doc blurted out, instinctively bending down to ensure he was beyond saving.
“He’s dead,” Rooster said, as his eyes flashed a blazing red and he began to involuntarily twinge. “And we have a problem.”
At a complete loss, I asked, “What the frig was that about?”
Grabbing my shoulders and spinning me toward him, Rooster barked, “Listen to me very carefully.
You need to get out of here. All of you. Now!”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, as the force of his spasming fingers began to literally dig into my flesh. “Tell me what’s happening. What the hell did he do to you?”
Struggling to speak, Rooster said, “In nomine patris et ortum conquor. It means rise and conquer in the name of your father. Spoken to a liderc with a blood sacrifice sets us on a path. A path of destruction … slaughter—”
Overcome with excruciating pain, he dropped to his knees and buried his face in his hands as he let out a primal scream that made me backpedal a step or two.
“Tell me how to help you.”
Still screaming, Rooster said, “You can’t help me. Don’t you get it? He’s commanded me to kill you. I won’t be able to stop myself. Run. Please—”
Watching in horror as he was overcome with uncontrollable convulsions and his entire body turned a deep, ghastly red, the reality of what was happening hit me like a ton of bricks.
Clearly freaked out by the turn of events, Doc barked, “Please tell me what’s happening.”
“Angry Rooster is apparently coming out to play,” I replied. “And Lew’s evidently sicced him on us.”
“What? How?”
“Not sure that’s relevant at the moment, Doc.” Turning to Owen as calmly as possible, I said, “Take Erin to the Quartermaster.”
Intently watching Rooster grotesquely morph from man to hulking beast causing his clothes to rip from his body, Double OT replied, “Ain’t gotta tell me twice. What about you?”
“I’m not leaving him,” I muttered. “Not like this.”
As the fully neph’d out Rooster slowly rose to his feet and turned to face us with a surreal, animal-like madness in his eyes, Doc’s face went instantly blank.
Turning pale white and reeling backward at the mind blowing sight of our friend in his true form, she gasped, “John? Oh my God!”
“Trust me, girl,” Owen muttered, “God ain’t got nothing to do with that kind of fugly bugly.”
In a nightmarish, gravelly voice that sent a bone chilling pulse through my spine, the creature said, “My father bids you welcome to the final act.”
And right on cue, the arcane veil surrounding the Washington Monument melted from existence to reveal a scene straight out of Dante’s frigg’n Inferno.
The monument itself blazed like a hellish beacon set against the night sky, as tendrils of greenish flame writhed and lashed about the structure like spectral serpents trying to bore a hole into another dimension. And worse, a seemingly impenetrable skirmish line of giant figures, fortified with interwoven bastions of burned out vehicles and towering piles of half eaten human carcasses, strategically formed a menacing perimeter around the structure.
The cloak rippled on my shoulders sending a jolt of divine power coursing through my system as Rooster loomed over us, frothing at the mouth.
Willing the spatha into being, I felt the presence of the leather scabbard manifest on my back as I ripped the otherworldly sword free.
Grabbing Owen, I barked, “Take Doc. Get out of here. Now!”
In an uncharacteristically serious tone, he said, “He’s gonna kill you dead.”
“No he’s not. I can bring him back.”
“No,” he coldly replied. “You can’t. The Johnny you know is gone.”
“Go,” I muttered, stepping between him and Rooster.
Without another word spoken, he then simply nodded before wrapping his arms around a still traumatized Erin and flickered out of existence.
“John, listen to me, you can fight this—”
Gazing down at me with bad intentions, the mind warped beast snarled, “What makes you think I want to?”
“Those aren’t your words. He’s controlling you. Fight through it.”
Raising a massive, gangly arm in a strike position, he said, “You should have left when you had the chance.”
As his boney fist rocketed toward my head, I couldn’t help but think that he was probably right.
Damn the bad luck.
Chapter 33
“Is that all you’ve got?” Rooster growled, slowly circling me like a brazen predator toying with its wounded prey.
I was bleeding. Badly.
Everything was blurry.
Muted.
Dark.
A deafening buzz of screeching static filled my ears.
My head pulsed with repeated crushing swells of unknowable pain.
I couldn’t keep this up.
The deep gash running across my midsection stung like a raging wildfire as blood trickled down my already sullied jeans and pooled at my feet.
He was too strong.
Too fast.
I had to end it — now.
There was no other way.
He’d left me no choice.
That goddamned son of a bitch left me no choice.
Mustering all my strength I pushed myself off the ground. Not quite ready to get to my feet, I just sat there on my knees and despondently stared at the ground for a long second. This shouldn’t be happening — but it was.
“Don’t make me do this!” I barked, burying my emotions as I summoned all my unnatural ability and defiantly stood to face him. “I’m begging you.”
In response, the mouth of the infernal, fifteen foot monster standing opposite me curled into a harrowing smile proudly displaying row upon row of barbed, blackened teeth. Seething streams of viscous, ashen drool bubbled from the corners of its massive jaw and steadily oozed down its veiny, sculpted chest like snaking rivers of unnatural lava.
Fixing me with a poisoned glare, the creature’s unnerving blue eyes danced with a fiery madness as every chiseled, sinewy muscle making up its hulking red frame flexed and bulged from the mocking, guttural laugh that boomed from somewhere deep within its massive throat.
“The great Dean Robinson,” it taunted, “Begs me.”
His mind was muddled.
Broken.
The man I knew had slipped into the ether.
Only the beast remained.
Tightening the grip on the hilt of my otherworldly gladiator sword, the cloak flared about my shoulders sending rippling waves of divine Wrath coursing throughout my being.
“You’re not thinking straight,” I grunted, as my wounds instantly healed themselves and argent metal gauntlets encased my hands in a spectral flash. “Remember who you are.”
“And who is that?”
“My friend. You’re my friend.”
“Friend,” the creature scoffed, as a fine layer of orange flame silhouetted his entire massive physique of scaly blotched skin pulled tautly over a freakish skeletal frame.
“Stand down, goddamn you!”
“God has not damned me, my friend. Quite the contrary — It is you who are damned.”
Holding out one of his impossibly large hands, he mockingly admired the ghastly trio of razor tipped talons jutting out from its clenched fist.
Composed of jagged ashen bone, and stained deep with streaks of haunting crimson, the grim instruments of eviscerating death forbiddingly gleamed in the moonlight as he loomed over me like an eager executioner waiting to carry out his appointed duty.
“Now, tell me,” he cunningly growled, frothing at the mouth like a craze-stricken animal, “Is that all you’ve got?”
“Not everything,” I grumbled, “Not yet.”
Letting out another barrage of guttural laughter, he said, “Then let us finish the game.”
“Don’t do this,” I pleaded.
“I am going to end you now, Dean — but take solace in the fact that the rest of your friends will not be far behind. I promise. They cannot hide from me.”
As his words hit me like a raging tidal wave, every muscle in my body tensed in anger. Feeling the mental switch flip to the on position, I slowly pulled in a long, deliberate breath.
Cleared my mind.
Focused my thoughts.
Found the Balance — the p
erfect balance between wrath and clarity.
As the unfathomable power welled up in the deep recess of my soul and the expected sensation of calmative awareness washed over me, I grumbled, “I really wish you hadn’t said that.”
And it was right about then when shit got real.
Without so much as another word, his gangly, talon tipped claws swung toward my head in a blur of motion as he launched at me with a grace and precision that should not have been possible for a creature of such mind-blowing size and strength.
Unfortunately, it no longer mattered.
He was too far gone.
I knew what had to be done.
Right, wrong, or indifferent.
Floating to my left and safely out of the arc of the death blow, his over-grown finger nails ripped into the street as he let out a harrowing, primal scream in clear frustration that I was no longer standing there.
Taking full advantage of the fact he was bent over and off balance, my face curled into a dark scowl as I focused all my supernatural strength and swung my sword toward his massive, heaving pectorals only to have it blocked by a gleaming katana that literally flickered into existence at that exact moment.
“Not so fast, Deano,” Double OT said, holding the samurai sword and dressed in some ridiculous shogun outfit that looked suspiciously authentic.
“Owen?” I blurted out. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Apparently I’m stopping you from skewering your best butt bud. Der! And besides, do you know how flipping pissed folks are gonna to be if you actually cut John Boy’s head off? Everybody loves that ginger ass monkey. I mean shit, son, MacGhil’s fans wouldn’t even read the rest of the damn book!”
“What?” I barked, having no frigg’n idea what he was talking about, as Rooster boldly rose to his feet and glared at us with a sinister squint.
“Trask,” he grunted, evidently less than happy to see Double OT.
“Hey, doucheball,” Owen said, with a wolfish grin as he sheathed the katana on his back. “I brought you something.”
Reaching into the satchel strapped across his torso and pulling out the oversized, undead cat that we’d seen in NecroLord’s lair, he muttered a few words under his breath in Enochian before tossing the hissing fuzzball straight into Rooster’s chest like a pissed off football.
Wrath of the Fallen: The Guild of Deacons, Book 2 Page 30