Havoc Rising

by Brian S. Leon

  She wiped her nose with the back of her gloved hand and sniffed, smearing blood across her face, which made her look even hotter.

  “Soon as that magic bubble popped, Sarah put a few in her,” Frigate said over his shoulder, positioning his rifle on some rubble for support. “Geek fell on my damned leg, and I twisted my ankle.” Suddenly his tone changed from friendly to urgent. “Uh, Chief, I found the Tango. She’s over there, near that stone stage, doing something with that big guy chained to the ground.”

  “You guys stand fast.” I watched as Sarah’s eyes opened wider at the mention of Medea. I pointed at Geek as I spoke to her. “Make sure he’s okay. And keep kicking ass.”

  The tight, thin line formed by her lips curled up at one corner into the slightest of smiles.

  CHAPTER 36

  I could sense that the Pelian Spear was farther back down the tunnel somewhere. It felt like a slight buzzing in my ears that became louder the closer I got to it, like a metal detector. I found the spear embedded in a pile of rocks with less than a foot of its length sticking out at the back of the rubble-filled passage. I grabbed it and pulled as hard as I could to free the weapon then took off with it back into the fray, heading straight for the dais and Medea.

  I spotted her on the far side of the cavern near Perses, exactly as Frigate had said. She was manipulating and directing the flow of energy from around the cavern toward Perses, who was thrashing wildly within his restraints. The writing on the floor around him began glowing brighter. To those who couldn’t perceive energy, Medea’s movements would have looked like some sort of martial-arts kata.

  I charged through a small group of the mutated humanoids, using the shaft of the spear to shove them aside as I ran. Automatic gunfire erupted all around me, but before I made it halfway to Medea, a blood-curdling, bestial howl stopped me in my tracks. Two hundred yards away to my left, Ab was going toe-to-toe with the last giant Ifrit.

  Time slowed as I watched. Ab landed a vicious blow with his hammer, catching the monstrous Jinn under its left arm and sliding it sideways. That blow would have driven a rhino over the centerfield wall at Petco Park, but the Ifrit just trapped the hammer under its arm and teleported twenty feet behind Ab and that much farther from me, with Ab’s hammer to boot. I took a step to throw the spear and help Ab out when a black-and-red blur zipped toward the Ifrit from my left. Now weaponless, Ab whirled around and charged without a second thought, racing like a linebacker with a clear bead on the quarterback—if the quarterback were ten feet tall.

  The Ifrit tossed the giant hammer aside as if it were a toy, snarled, and threw a gout of yellow flame a yard wide at Ab. It engulfed his entire upper body in fire but hardly slowed his advance. Several of Medea’s followers, a little too close to the fight, burst into flames, screaming in agony before they died.

  Someone screamed, “Ab!” above the din of battle. I couldn’t tell if it came from me. By the time my head cleared, I realized I hadn’t thrown the spear, and the red-and-black blur was flying through the air toward the Ifrit’s back.

  It was Duma. When he slammed into the beast that had threatened his brother, Duma rammed his curved kukri knives down to their hilts into its broad neck, flipped off its back, and landed in a low crouch with two more knives in his hands. The creature bellowed in pain, and I began running again, but as I closed into within fifty yards of the fight, three mutated humanoid creatures with swords cut me off.

  I didn’t have time for this. In one motion, I swung the butt of the Spear around, cracking the brute to my right across the head, then pulled the weapon back, rammed the butt into the next one’s face, and spun around and jammed it into the third creature’s chest. I disabled all three in seconds.

  I watched Ab tackle the Ifrit with a thud I could feel in my chest. Smoke rose around them as he grappled the thing to the ground. By the time I’d made it the rest of the way over, Ab was pummeling the Ifrit mercilessly with his armored fists, the long black plume on the crown of his helmet gone but for a smoldering wisp, his upper-body armor and helmet blackened by the fire.

  While the Ifrit wasn’t quite dead by the time I arrived, it was damn close. I picked up Ab’s hammer and threw it next to him with a resounding thunk on the stone floor of the cavern. The giant Peri continued to wail on the Jinn, sending sizzling blood flying with each blow. Ab calmly rose, picked up his weapon, and tossed it onto his shoulder. With his free hand, he took off his helmet and let it fall to the ground. His normally white eyes were a sickly yellow, oozy and swollen from the heat, and his face was blistered. He walked over to stand beside the Ifrit’s head, grabbed his hammer with both hands, and spun it so the point on the rear of its head was facing up. When he brought it down, it drove the Jinn’s head into the cavern floor, spraying flaming blood in all directions. I was getting damn tired of these flaming things. Blood landed on Ab’s bare face with a sizzle but didn’t faze him. Duma came over, clapping his gloved hands, and then removed his helmet and tucked it under his arm.

  “I didn’t need help, brother,” Ab said crossly as smoke continued to rise from his charred armor.

  Duma and I just laughed. Behind the humor, I could see the relief etched on Duma’s face and in his eyes because I felt it, too. I hung my head, shaking it. Battle with these two was always different.

  “Boys, we got bigger issues yet,” I said, gesturing with my head over my shoulder back at Medea, who was still engrossed in directing energy into the thrashing Titan. “Make sure she can’t leave this cavern.”

  I made my way through the remaining groups of humans and creatures, using the spear to dispatch would-be attackers as I tried to close in on Medea without drawing her attention away from her spell work. Gunfire was becoming less and less frequent, but an undeniable feeling of power was growing within the grotto, stemming from Medea and Perses. Perhaps fewer than thirty of Medea’s armed followers remained, and I could make out a few small groups of Spartoi amid the fracas. I could also still see quite a few of the death spirits, both male and female, gleefully ripping apart anything with which they came into contact.

  I was still several hundred yards away from Medea and the chained Titan when I noticed another figure on the dais behind Medea. It wasn’t huge—less than six feet tall—but it was completely covered in a dirty, bulky gray cloak and hood. I couldn’t see its face, only green, glowing eyes within the hood. A pair of boney grayish hands protruded from the sleeves. The being projected immense energy toward the witch, far greater than her own and much older but in the same greasy black form as Medea’s. In addition to the power she cast toward Medea, the being gave off the distinct, pure aura of the Old Ones. She had to be Hecate.

  She was augmenting Medea’s energy to achieve their goal of harnessing the power of chaos. I had little doubt that Hecate had her own twisted agenda for using her father to achieve their goal, as well. It made sense that it would take Hecate to help a human, even one as powerful as Medea, harness and use the power of a Protogenoi—namely, her father, Perses. Whatever their reasoning, Medea—backed by Hecate—took crazy to a level that I could only imagine would make nightmares seem like an amusement park.

  Up on the dais, Hecate was raising her palms upward and chanting in an unintelligible language as the wave of energy flowed like a power cord into Medea. Near Perses, the physical signs of magical power were beginning to germinate like sparks and fluorescent motes, playing around Medea’s form as she mimicked Hecate’s movements. The energy flowing into Perses was becoming a nearly opaque cloud that surrounded him, contained within the glowing writing on the ground.

  I broke into a trot, keeping low with the Pelian Spear in my hand, as two Spartoi closed in on Hecate from just off the dais to her left. One of the soldiers trained a hefty M249 SAW machine gun on her, and the other had his M4 assault rifle in firing position less than twenty yards away.

  Hecate paid no attention to the fact sh
e was being flanked and continued her odd synchronized ballet of hand gestures and arm movements with Medea. All at once, the pair of Spartoi opened fire on her, the SAW rattling like a freight train, drowning out the lighter M4. The gunner with the M4 ran through his clip, ejected it, inserted another and kept firing while the box-fed M249 just kept rattling.

  They had to have thrown a hundred rounds at her before they stopped, probably to keep the weapons from overheating. Hecate’s only acknowledgment of their existence was a slight wave of her left hand, as if she were shooing away flies. Energy left the Spartoi like a fan blowing loose dirt around, and the warriors collapsed as if they’d been deboned.

  “Frigate, take out the target on the stage. Priority One,” I said, pressing the talk button on my chest as I scrambled across the cavern with greater urgency. I was now within a hundred yards of the pair and within my effective range with the spear. My only concern was that it was a one-shot weapon, so I had to make sure that one attempt counted.

  Seconds later, something exploded near Hecate’s head in a shower of light, and the thunder of the Barrett filled the hollow cavern, but again, she was unfazed. That was the problem with using mortal weapons against immortal creatures—they didn’t always work the way they were supposed to. Even the armor-piercing, explosive Raufoss Mk 211 rounds that blew a hole through an Ifrit did no damage to her. It was worth a try, but I was hoping Frigate’s attempt would at least distract her.

  Meanwhile, the greasy, amoeboid energy wave Hecate produced continued to grow more concentrated. Before I got close enough to take my chance with the spear, a magical convulsion surged from Medea’s hands and spread out in every direction through the cavernous space. Every human it reached slumped over, and the air became palpable with energy.

  I could feel the wave wash over me, trying to invade my mind. I had a vision of Medea telling me my usefulness was past, that it was time for the Happening, and my reward would be a swift and painless death. Suddenly drowsy and comfortable, I had to dredge up a force of will to drive the image and feeling from my head. The mental invasion made me stumble a bit, but I quickly regained my balance and shook my head clear. Noting all the fallen humans, and given what I’d just experienced, I had no doubt my sniper team had suffered the same fate. I had to stop her before she killed them all.

  At that point, the only thing separating Medea and me was a distance of about fifty yards, but a troop of Phonoi and Androktasiai surrounding the enormous, four-armed Phonoi skittered in to act as a blockade around her and Perses.

  There were maybe three dozen murderous spirits in total, each of them following my movements like a cat watching a mouse. Some of them had natural armor like that of insects or turtles. The ones with bodies wore armor, and those with hands held weapons, but most possessed appendages that were lethal in their own right: scorpion tails and, for arms, everything from crab-like claws to barbed spears.

  The four-armed Phonoi at the back of the group had silvery skin that gave the appearance of tight-fitting metal plates. Two of its appendages were like claws, each with four digits ending in massive metallic nails. The lower pair of arms was human enough and held an acinaces—a short sword originated by the ancient Medes—and a threshing sickle. I kept a close eye on him as I slowly continued to approach.

  I stopped fifteen feet from the bad guys and rammed the Pelian Spear into the stone floor, sending sparks flying. I’d done it mostly for effect, but the horde of murderous beings didn’t seem impressed.

  “Medea!” I shouted. “What are you up to, you crazy witch?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, off to my right, I could see three groups of Spartoi moving to back me up, but Medea didn’t respond to my question or even acknowledge my presence. She just kept on chanting in a frenzied, stepped cadence that matched the intensity of the rising energy being pulled from the fallen human bodies. Behind her on the dais, Hecate continued to match her movements. The entire cavern was buzzing with an energy that felt like being outside during an electrical storm wearing a metal suit, and the air was filled with billions of tiny fireflies rising into the air from the collapsed people.

  “Come on now, Medea. Let’s be adult about this,” I shouted, trying to break her concentration.

  She still didn’t respond. Time to change from passive to much more aggressive.

  I pulled the Pelian Spear from the ground, and all at once, the group of Phonoi came to life, moving agitatedly in place, claws clacking and weapons clinking. The Androktasiai began chittering and hissing through their pointy little teeth. I almost took a step back at their display of aggression, but I was far too brave to be intimidated.

  “Ooh, hot crowd, hot crowd,” I said, mostly to myself, and then I noticed Duma on my left, shaking his head at my stupid commentary. “What took you so long?”

  “Oh, you know, the usual. Killing bad guys.” He was using the edge of one of his curved knives to scrape black blood from the other.

  Off to our right, the Spartoi were forming up into ranks. I counted six of them as they broke into two groups and started slamming their giant shields together in unison, forming a wall between them and the murderous entities, sending a deafening metallic echo through the chamber.

  They began to beat the backsides of their shields with their swords, chanting a thunderous “ah-ooh!” and keeping the din going. It didn’t surprise me when the Spartoi began the clamor. It was a mainstay of their primitive tactical repertoire. What did surprise me, however, was that the trick worked.

  The Phonoi and Androktasiai shifted their gaze toward the Spartoi, suddenly confused about whether they should direct their attention to the noisy soldiers or me and Duma. The pounding and rhythmic droning probably would have scared the snot out of most mortal units, but the United Nations of Death troops were entranced by it. In fact, it just excited them more, probably raising their anticipation of the carnage to come. That was the problem with spirits of manslaughter and death.

  Hecate and Medea were clearly deep into some incantation that was drawing in and focusing enormous amounts of entropic energy to unleash some sort of hell on Earth. Meanwhile, approximately three dozen homicidal spirits, some drop-dead gorgeous and all as ramped up as kids on a sugar high, stood between the evil creatures and us. On my side, I had six members of the musical Stomp pounding away at their shields, and one refugee from a renaissance festival. I had no idea where Ab was or whether he was okay, and no clue about Frigate, Geek, and Sarah. Go, Team Diomedes!

  CHAPTER 37

  All at once, the Spartoi stopped chanting and banging, leaving only the low, steady rhythmic cadence of Medea and Hecate’s spellcraft and the clicking and hissing from the death spirits. The quiet was as loud as the noise had been.

  “Last chance, Medea,” I said, tossing up the spear in order to shift from a stabbing grip to a throwing one.

  When she didn’t respond, I looked over at Duma then back at the Spartoi. Then I threw the spear as hard as I could, pulled my swords, and ran straight for the wall of death spirits and the colossal, four-armed Phonoi.

  I aimed my throw at Hecate, precisely because I was hoping Medea wouldn’t expect it—assuming in her focused state she even knew I was there. In the instant that I released the spear, Duma and the Spartoi charged the death brigade with me. The Spartoi were screaming as one as they closed the distance, and the spirits responded in a frenzy, moving to meet them head-on. I came in low and sliced the first Androktasiai I encountered across her abdomen, nearly cutting her waif-like body in half. Continuing to move, I spun around her as she began to collapse, and embedded my blade deep into the skull of a small Phonoi just to her left. Wrenching the blade free, I faced the next one, murderous rage growing inside me. Other than Medea, I was the only conscious human within the entire cavern.

  As I spun from the female death spirit toward the Phonoi, I watched the Pelian Spear pierce some sort of b
arrier around Hecate then pass through in a shower of sparks and stab her dead in the middle of her chest with the slightest of thumps. The Titan Goddess of Witchcraft staggered and began to fall. In a massive implosion, the greasy black cloud of energy that Hecate directed at Medea broke loose and recoiled back on its source, accompanied by a deafening crack like a sonic boom. Numerous smaller Androktasiai and Phonoi with their backs to the dais were pulled over backward. For the rest of us at the edges of Hecate’s violent departure, it felt like getting caught in the surf as a wave ebbed. Hecate was simply gone, but the area of the stone dais where she stood was little more than a crater.

  Duma, a handful of the Spartoi, and I managed to remain upright—though my head was ringing—but only a few of the Phonoi, including Four Arms less than fifty feet away, kept their footing. The Spartoi, still on their feet, slammed into the bad guys, using their shields as battering rams.

  The rage building within me shoved aside the ringing in my head, and I stalked directly for Four Arms. Duma waded back into the fray next to me, both of us slashing as fast as we could. The high-pitched shrieks of spirits tearing themselves from their mortal shells were eerie. I could feel their hatred and viciousness seep into me. Reason and purpose left me. All I could think about was how badly I wanted to rip all four of the arms off the giant Phonoi that was currently tearing into what was left of the Spartoi. I forced my way through the melee, hacking and slashing as I marched in a deliberate path toward the beast.

  The vacuum effect of Hecate’s disappearance and the absence of her power seemed to break Medea’s concentration. She nearly collapsed, and her scream of agony and frustration rose above the battle as her complex spell fell apart. The failed spell released the pent-up energy without focus, rendering it as harmless as air let out of a balloon.