Something strange was happening. There was chanting, growing in intensity. I immediately recognized Hood's amplified voice, speaking in an incomprehensible language. The alien limbs overhead began to twitch, clicking in their unnatural joints. The Arbmunep emitted a keening rattle, like a swarm of cicadas, as it began to move. "Tell Skippy to watch out!"
But it was too late. One of the segmented branches crashed downward. Somehow Skippy saw it coming and jerked the chopper out of the way, narrowly missing the rotor. The branch creaked in protest and rose back into place, moving with a lumbering ferocity. One of the Apaches wasn't as lucky, and a limb slammed through its rotor. The chopper spun wildly through the air, billowing smoke, and crashed onto its side near the portal. The blades snapped off and flew through the army of monsters.
"What the hell's that?" Sam shouted.
Before I could answer, the ground beneath our feet surged, hoisting all of us into the air. Some of us went tumbling down, others managed to hold on. I was in the center where it was relatively flat, and was barely hanging on when the hill started to move. Julie was next to me, and went tumbling over the edge as the ground disappeared. I grabbed her wrist and held on for dear life. I was twenty feet over the ground, the other Hunters being knocked away, before I realized what was happening. The Arbmunep was moving.
The entire world was spinning, shaking, and there was a vast tearing noise. Trenches and hills were exploding up through the dirt all around us. Nate Shackleford disappeared into the ground as a crevasse opened up beneath his feet. Julie screamed something incoherent. The hill we were on lurched forward twenty feet, screeched to a halt, almost dislodging me, then surged again.
Roots. The giant tree was mobile. And it was heading right for the portal and the Hunters who were defending it. I pulled until Julie scrambled up beside me.
The other Apache was torn in half in a cascading gout of fire as a limb crashed through it. Skippy was staying just ahead of the shockingly fast branches, zipping about in a way that was surely impossible for the bulky chopper, clouds of ancient dirt falling with every swing. Explosions ripped across the trunk with no effect. He should have gotten the hell out from under it, but he was still firing, trying to provide cover for the humans on the ground.
"Skip, get out of here! Fall back!" Julie ordered. Another branch struck, and Skippy barely avoided it. The next sparked against his tail rotor, blowing it to bits. The Hind began to rotate violently, puking smoke, and it sank out of view into the cemetery. "No!" There was a terrible crashing noise.
I was barely hanging on. The root we were on top of would rise quickly into the air, then slam back down seconds later. There were dozens of these appendages, all driving the Tree onward, each movement surely shaking the earth for miles. As it neared the portal, whichever Hunter was in charge was smart enough to order everyone to retreat back toward the mortuary. The dirt we were hanging onto dislodged and Julie and I tumbled to the ground.
"Move!" I shouted as we hit, still holding onto her wrist, trying to stay ahead of the giant flailing appendages. Each root was as big around as a car, and they slammed around us with terrible impacts. Both of us were knocked on our faces as another root landed behind us.
The Tree shifted as it hit the portal, slamming its roots into the ground, breaking the magic cord and severing the connection to Alabama. The pillar of light disappeared and we were plunged back into absolute darkness. The Tree was still.
It was silent except for our frantic panting in the dusty air, and then an insectile chattering noise as the Tree settled into its new position. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. It took us a moment to catch our breath. "Come on," Julie hissed. She grabbed the front of my armor. "We've got to go back for Nate."
I could barely make out her figure in the dark. Then three dozen bright white eyeballs opened in a wall behind her. "Shoggoth!" I raised my gun and triggered my flashlight. One tentacle impacted my chest, pinning my weapon and crushing me down. It encircled my arms and cinched tight. It was immensely strong. Another tentacle zipped around Julie's waist and hoisted her into the air. She swore at it. More eyeballs blinked in my face as I struggled helplessly.
"CAPTURED SACRIFICE," it wheezed in an impossible bass from half a dozen mouths. It was so loud that wherever Hood was, he had certainly heard it. The amorphous blob seeped across the ground, Julie held in the air, me dragging along on the dirt, disoriented, but seemingly going back in the direction we had come from. No matter how hard I fought, I was stuck. I tried to yell for help, but a wet appendage slapped shut over my mouth. It smelled like hot tar.
It dragged me for about a minute, only slowing when the light visibly turned red. The shoggoth had brought us back to the portal to the Old Ones. It spilled us to the ground, leaving us both coughing and gagging in a puddle of ooze, our arms still leashed to our sides. The necromancer was standing there, waiting, a giant undead automaton flanking him on both sides. The hole to the Old Ones' universe stretched before us, cloudy and red.
"You're dead, Hood," I gasped. "The Feds know where we are. They've probably got nukes inbound already. They'll never let your stupid Tree live."
He nodded. "Obviously. But this is just the first of many. On my own, I was barely strong enough to unleash one. In return for your sacrifice, my Lord will awake the others. This is the first and greatest, but there are hundreds more seedlings buried across the world." Hood smiled. "And even then, an attempt to cleanse the mighty Arbmunep with nuclear fire will just end up bathing this entire part of the world in a cloud of perpetual night. The Yith made the same mistake sixty-five million years ago."
"You'll never get away with this," Julie said. The wall of eyeballs turned on her, blinking suspiciously. "My men will make sure of that."
"Well, little Julie Shackleford is all grown up." Hood laughed hard. "Your men? That's a good one. Your Hunters are running for their lives, my minions at their heels. And even if they do manage to interfere, it won't do you two any good." He clapped his hands. "Great shoggoth, send these mortals to meet your almighty maker!"
But the blob didn't toss us into the portal. It hoisted Julie with one dripping arm and turned her upside down, studying her with lots of curious eyeballs.
"What are you waiting for?" Hood demanded. "I command you to put them in the portal!"
Julie's hair was dangling in the tar. It was like she was having a staring contest with the blob. "Mr. Trash Bags? Is that you?" she asked quietly.
The eyes all blinked at once. "CUDDLE BUNNY?"
Julie grinned. "It is you!"
I could feel the surge of emotion through the dripping tentacle as Mr. Trash Bags remembered. This time the dark lightning struck like a bomb.
"Hi," said the grubling. "I'm Julie."
"FILTHY MAMMAL," the Exile replied. The mammal grubling was to be devoured. The Exile was shamed. The Exile had failed-TERRIBLE SHRIEKING DOOM-the Exile had come here to devour the mammals that had battled the other servants of Horde. The Exile would please the master and no longer be Exile. Again it would be Number 786 of Horde.
"CONSUME!"
"You're funny," said the grubling. Air passed over the grubling's vocal cords and made a melody, not unlike the shrike-hounds of the howling gates and it made the Exile feel stop. New sound, word list on mammals called it giggle made the Exile feel not to devour the grubling. The grubling held up with its opposable thumbs an image of a tiny earth beast, made of cloth, stuffed with fibers. "This is Cuddle Bunny. Want to play?"
"CONSUME?"
"No. Play, silly." The grubling used its pathetic leg limbs to hop away. "Come on. You're my friend. You're like a big trash bag."
The Exile was confounded. The other mammals were made of hate and burning. The master-TERRIBLE SHRIEKING DOOM- was made of pain and orders. This grubling was of not kill. Suddenly the grubling changed to the Exile's current eyes and the Exile saw that this mammal was made of stars.
Confused. The Exile followed. The Exile became Friend.
"Destroy them!" Hood shouted at the hesitating shoggoth.
"NOOO!" The simple beast remembered what was probably the only thing that had ever loved it. Two tentacles cracked like whips, splitting the automatons flanking Hood in half. The limbs tore through the shadow man, pulverizing the ground at his feet, but he merely re-formed in place.
Snarling, he extended one hand. "Traitorous amorph!" A bolt of fire leapt from his amulet, down his arm, and from his hand, bursting into the shoggoth, engulfing it in flames. "How dare you!"
"PROTECT CUDDLE BUNNY," the shoggoth thundered as it carelessly tossed Julie behind it. The burning blob surged over me, across the portal, and at the shadow man. I was released, and spun wildly through the tar. The flaming beast collided with Hood, burning bits flying in every direction. Already it seemed to shrink as it turned to ash. I slid through the goo, trying to get to my feet. The blob hardened and shattered into burning shards. There was a terrible piercing squeal as Mr. Trash Bags exploded.
Hood dusted the ash from his robe. "Never trust a blob to do a man's work." He took three steps and leapt across the portal, landing effortlessly beside me. I fired my shotgun into his head and he merely swatted it aside before grabbing me around the throat and lifting me off the ground. Half man, half darkness, the hole in his face quickly closed. "We already said our good-byes."
There was a mighty yell. "Pitt!" I glanced up in time to see Agent Franks sprinting toward us, leaping between the massive roots. He would never make it in time.
"Too late," Hood said as he heaved me into the center of the portal.
Chapter 21
I broke the surface.
Time was different.
It was difficult to comprehend. Our existence doesn't really encompass this kind of experience. Time passed, but in different directions simultaneously. My brain hurt just trying to function.
My eyes still worked. The light was primarily red, but didn't seem to come from any particular source. It was utterly strange, alien. The air entering my lungs wasn't made of what I thought of as air, but it didn't matter, as enough time hadn't passed yet to breathe. I was floating in place, in a haze, almost like being on a cloud in some alternate hellish version of heaven.
Which according to the Condition, I probably was.
A creature made entirely of eyeballs floated past. It was tiny, but then I realized that with no scale, it might have been miles away and the size of a subway train. It was eating hornets made of razor blades and steam, but it didn't matter, because time wasn't passing. It just was.
Oh God. I'm scared.
The whole universe moved. It was the Dread Master blinking. A yellow slit appeared through the red. It was looking at me.
Time wasn't right, but at the same time I could see a million years in the past, and a million years into the future, and in other directions into dimensions that I couldn't comprehend, and I was going to die repeatedly through all of them, forever. This epic thing honestly believed that I was the first mortal being to ever harm it. I just knew that this being had waged millennia of war between stars against things even more diabolical than it was, but somehow a mere human had hurt it. And I was going to pay for that. A lot.
"That whole thing with the nuke, that wasn't me. The guy you want to talk to is Dwayne Myers. That's Special Agent Dwayne Myers of the Monster Control Bureau. M-Y-E-R-S." I didn't know if I just thought that, or if I could actually speak in this place, but even if I could, I'm sure my pitiful utterances were like a mosquito buzzing around its ear.
That giant eye kept regarding me. I could feel it in my mind, poking around as it figured out what would hurt me the most. I was a bubble of linear time in this ageless place, an oddity. My universe was poison to the Dread Master, but consuming me would be the equivalent of a healthy person eating a single jelly bean. Not exactly good for you, but it wasn't like you were going to notice.
Then it spoke. The entire universe thundered with its incomprehensible voice. All I could understand was the pain. The message itself was beyond me. But it didn't matter, because this was how I was going to spend eternity.
A few minutes in this place had shattered Ray Shackleford's mind before Earl had pulled him out. Ray had never been the same. For the first time, I had nothing but pity for him. The Dread Master said something else. I experienced agony beyond anything I had ever imagined. Turning into a zombie was Christmas at Disneyland with all-you-can-eat ice cream and a free ride on the space shuttle in comparison.
When it was done, I floated there, wishing to die.
I was mortal at home. Here I was an infinite chew toy. It hadn't even started yet. It got closer. Ten thousand feet of sleek carapace attached to millipede tentacles crackling with electricity. The eyeball creature was snagged by the forest of limbs and absorbed, digested for eternity to fuel the fires of chaos.
Then, in the abyss of confusion, there was a presence of something familiar, another bubble of familiar reality. A blue light intruded into the red, and it was as if time began to move again. It was coming from the opposite direction of the Dread Overlord. "I've never failed a mission," the presence said as I turned.
"Agent Franks?"
He was different here. The physical body was just a shell, housing a spirit that was clearly not that of a normal human, but rather something simpler and older. The recycled organs, bones, and sinew that served as Frank's avatar showed me the ward stone. It boiled with the power of pure reality. "Won't start now." There was a clear trail of energy connected to the ward stone stretching back to our universe.
Julie had explained it to me. As far as I understand how the ward works, it's basically a focus point for our reality. Like a magnifying glass under the sun. Undead are an unnatural thing in this world, so it just blasts them. Things from outside this reality can't take the heat. And now that I could see what it really was, I could tell that it was far more powerful than any of us had realized. The ward was huge, crackling with potential. The alchemists of old hadn't just created a defensive device. They'd created a doomsday weapon. It was like the seventeenth century's version of Mutually Assured Destruction.
If our reality was poison to the Old Ones, then Franks had just brought a keg of VX nerve gas into their living room.
The Dread Master assaulted us both with hate. As alien as we were to it, it probably didn't even understand what was going on, but it didn't like it one bit. Terrible visions and alien memories pounded my psyche. Bombarded by pain, Franks still pushed toward me, finally shoving the ward stone into my waiting hands. "Break it," Franks ordered. "I can't."
Of course not. It had been built by a human, for humans.
The Dread Overlord propelled itself forward.
In this place, I could see the stone for what it really was, a mere shell, a container, harnessing a violent reaction of raw physics and possibility. Four hundred years ago, a combination of dark wizardry and powerful alchemy had bound it to the shell, letting just enough leak so that it could be used as a shield against the forces of the other side. Franks had prearranged all of the numbers on the sphere using his creator's mathematical codes. It was ready.
The Dread Overlord was right on top of us. I would never make it in time.
My fingers sunk into the stone as I wrenched it apart. The field fragmented and energy lanced through the spreading cracks. I let go of the stone and it floated away from me, power building toward a cataclysmic reaction.
"Take my hand!" Julie… She had come after me. I reached toward her voice. "Hurry!" Then she grabbed me, pulling me down the chain, back to the real world.
The container shattered. Unleashed, a blue tidal wave of linear time invaded the reality of the Dread Master. If consuming me
was a jelly bean's worth of bad health to it, then this was the equivalent of suck-starting a double-barreled 12-gauge. The yellow eye focused on the approaching wall of deadly reality. Incompatible matter collided, splitting atoms and releasing energy in an algorithmic multiplying fury. Ageless infinity broke. Every bit of the ancient squid god became disjointed, fractured, down to the subatomic level. The galaxy quivered.
The Dread Master simply… ruptured.
The explosion billowed outward, consuming planets.
I gasped for air.
There was dirt under me, real honest-to-goodness dirt. Flat on my back, lying in the center of the now solid stone circle, the Tree blotted out the sky above. Gunfire and explosions came from all around. A ten-foot-tall ogre lumbered past, on fire. I was never so glad to be home.
One of my arms was stretched out. Someone was holding my hand. My head hurt and I was so dizzy that it took me a moment to roll over and see who it was.
"Julie?" I whispered. She was lying facedown, perfectly still, but she had a death grip on my hand. "Julie?" Slowly, she took a deep breath, then finally raised her head. Tears stained her cheeks. "You came after me…"
Julie smiled weakly. "Well, duh."
"Thank you," I croaked.
She just pulled herself closer, resting her head against mine. "Don't ever make me do that again."
I didn't know if she meant the portal, or having me abandon her so I could sulk off to die. She'd had the courage to follow me someplace that nobody should ever have to go and had dragged me back out. "Deal."
"Ever again…"
Something stirred at my feet. Franks sat up abruptly. He looked around slowly before staggering to his feet. "Never killed anything that big before," he said, sounding almost, but not quite, proud of himself. "It was… satisfying."
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