I emptied the STI into the demon wall, sending a beast back to hell with each shot. But for every one that I dispatched, another flaming hole would open in the sky, dropping another creature into the back of the throng.
I am sorry, Boy. This is end.
I speed-reloaded and continued shooting. I felt Julie by my side. She was also down to just her handgun. Time was running out. Acid exploded nearby, and scalding droplets scorched us. I heard an inhuman scream of rage from behind me as Harbinger ripped into the demons with his bare hands, crushing their alien bones, and flinging their husks back into the mass.
"I love you, Julie," I shouted as my slide locked back empty and I went for another mag.
"I love you, Owen," she answered.
Too bad I was about to die.
A demon hunched down directly before us, a subcutaneous membrane opening on its back, spines aligning to launch at Julie's chest. I stepped in front of her.
The alien spear pierced through my armor just above my sternum, shearing through the top of my heart and piercing out the muscles of my back. Incomprehensible pain slammed me, heat and pressure beyond all imagining. I fell to my knees, and rocked backwards in the mud.
I looked upwards at Julie as my life blood flooded out of me and onto the ground. Rain poured down into my unblinking eyes.
Chapter 23
My body lay lifeless on the ground, legs bent, arms spread wide, an alien spear protruding from my chest, and a puddle of blood spreading under gravity's power.
I stood above myself. Above the battlefield. Demon horde rampaging against the final two Hunters. My spirit moved between the sluggish raindrops. Time had slowed down, and I watched as the last few seconds of the battle stretched into eternity. Julie was only a few heartbeats from certain death. Earl Harbinger stood at her back, torn asunder with wounds, bristling with spines like a mutant porcupine, bleeding from countless injuries, but still fighting beyond any human capability.
Mordechai Byreika stood by my side. I could feel the Old Man's sorrow.
I am sorry, Boy. You fought much hard. Braver Hunters the world never has seen.
What now?
Is over. Battle is lost. Tomorrow Cursed One destroy world.
Above the battlefield was the presence of Lord Machado. I could see it now. A sprawling evil blackness, roiling in the clouds. His laughter continued.
No.
Is not possible, Boy. You are not stuck. Move on you can. Not like me.
No.
The Cursed One was visible to me now. Of course, I was not bound by the limitations of my human sight. The gash that he had torn into the world was visible. The tear that went to the other place, the rift to the other world. The world that served as a temporary repository for the minions of the Old Ones. The ancient artifact of evil stood above all. It was the key. It was the bridge.
No.
The power was not ready. It was not time yet. Lord Machado would not be able to unlock the full power of the artifact until tomorrow at the zenith of the full moon. The demon army standing below was just a partial example of what the artifact could do.
You can go on. There is good place waiting for you. Move on, Boy. Is over.
No.
I watched in slow motion as Earl Harbinger tore the head from one of the demons. In the view that I had now, I could see the demon's contorted spirit disappear from that animated physical body, denied access from this plane of existence. At that exact moment, a rift appeared to the other world, and the same spirit dropped through, cloaked again in a new physical body.
The Cursed One could only control a limited number of spirits.
His powers were still limited.
No.
I headed directly toward the evil blackness, passing into the realm of the dark one. I aimed my spirit at the artifact. The artifact was the key. The artifact was the key to control the power of time and space.
Boy! Wait. Do not face Cursed One like this. You will become stuck like me!
No.
Lord Machado regarded me idly. I could see the link back to his physical body. His slime-coated form knelt in a dark cavern, surrounded by his sleeping vampire minions and a fresh host of undead servants.
YOU HAVE FAILED, HUNTER.
No.
THIS WORLD IS MINE NOW.
I willed myself to approach the artifact. With the veil removed from my eyes I could see the true evil of the ancient thing. It dwarfed Lord Machado. It dwarfed us all. Its power was incredible. Incredible and dark and old and unspeakably evil. I could see the legions of dark forces waiting to move hungrily into this world should its power be unleashed. Black glistening octopus things, bigger than skyscrapers. Ancient triangular crustaceans the size of freighters, floating weightless through the void. Pale saucer eyes searching for a fresh world to plunder and intelligent souls to enslave.
No.
And I looked upon the glory of the legions of goodness and light that stood ready to do battle against them. A vast host of the noble and great ones. I could have given up and moved on and joined them. They urged me silently onward.
YOU HAVE THE STRONGEST MORTAL SPIRIT I HAVE EVER BEHELD.
I ignored him. I continued toward the artifact. I had to reach it.
YOU SHALL BE A FINE SLAVE.
No.
TOMORROW I SHALL RAISE MY QUEEN. YOU WILL BE HER SERVANT.
My consciousness strained against the evil barrier, pushing onwards toward the horrid power. Far below my surviving friends battled onward. More spines and claws pierced Harbinger, but still he fought on, rolling and splashing down into the ranks of the evil minions, smashing them, tearing them with his teeth and claws, more holes opening in the sky as the spirits of the alien warriors were recycled. Julie stood alone, blade in one hand, alien spine wielded as a club in the other. They fought on.
I reached the artifact. It glowed before me like a black sun, epic and deadly. Finally Lord Machado realized what I was doing.
YOU ARE MAD. YOU CANNOT CONTROL THE POWER OF THE OLD ONES. ONLY I MAY DO SO. YOU WILL BE UTTERLY DESTROYED.
I knew that he spoke the truth. He was not just talking about losing my life, but losing what I really was. The artifact was that powerful. Below me, my love fell to the claws of the alien army.
No.
I touched the artifact. Stretching across a thousand billion years of space and reality, time, matter, imagination, power. I put my will against the meager hold the Cursed One had upon it.
NO.
He rose to battle me, but he had been unprepared for a challenge. I focused my will upon the dark object as it assaulted my mind and my sanity, bombarding me with strange images and alien memories of a thousand dead worlds. I wrested it from the tentacles of the Cursed One.
The tenuous link across the rift was severed. The tunnel from the world of the Old Ones to an obscure swamp in Mississippi was destroyed. The alien army disappeared in a flash of light and fire.
NO!
The Cursed One screamed at me. We drew face to face for the first time, or as much as was possible since neither one of us currently had a face. His power surged against me, forcing me away, striving to ensnare my spirit and destroy me forever.
The carnage of the epic battle was strewn below. The remains of dead Hunters were spread across the fetid swamp. The dark spirits of the blighted region wandered amongst the bodies, celebrating the victory. My brave friends had been scattered and killed, the life ripped from their bodies. Only the changed Harbinger remained alive, and only barely, and even he would succumb to the lethal poisons shortly.
Trip, Holly, Milo, Sam, Lee, Skippy, Edward, even Franks and his men.
And Julie.
Her body lay still, and from my vantage I could see that her time was up.
I wished that I could turn back time.
Yes.
Lord Machado screamed in rage. Wrath crackled across the universe as his will was subverted.
NOOOOOOO…
The power of t
he Old Ones was tapped. Ancient wells of evil were utilized, and for the first time in eons, the true power of their ancient artifact was unleashed. Incomprehensible energies were set free, battering the foundations of time and space, subverting natural order, and crackling across the universe.
For five minutes, linear time was broken.
My spirit was reunited violently with my body and the breath of life filled my lungs. I gasped in pain and confusion. The horrible cleaving pain in my chest was gone. I choked, and the sour swamp gas smell of Natchy Bottom was in my mouth. I watched as concentric rings of water moved backward upon the surface, formed globules of water, and reversed themselves against gravity and rose into the air. As time stabilized, the raindrops froze, and then fell like normal.
I was lying in the mud, shotgun readied before me. The others were spread out over the same patch of ground that we had been defending five minutes before.
"Aarrrgghhh!" Sam shouted, continuing the noise that he had been making when the acid bomb had killed him. Holly aimed at the spot of ground that the first alien had jumped from and wildly emptied her rifle into the water, splashing mud, wood bits and water, but no monster. She dropped the rifle and grabbed her forehead, finding no hole. She then probed under the back of her helmet looking for the exit wound.
Harbinger stood up and looked around in confusion. Gradually the others did the same thing until the whole group was standing, bewildered and confused. Except for me, of course. I lay in the mud and wept, my cheek pressed into the stock of my weapon.
In the distance some of the Feds panicked and detonated their claymore mines against the empty swamp. Shouts of confusion echoed through the trees.
The Hunters checked themselves for extra holes, and found none. Milo walked a few feet away, set the flamethrower down, and then fell to his knees and folded his arms to pray silently. Trip did the same, crying while he did so. Skippy and Edward removed their hoods, revealing their tusked faces to everyone. They both took small, dried-lizard necklaces from inside their clothing and began to bat them with their foreheads and gesture toward the sky.
Julie flopped down next to me. She grabbed the drag strap on the back of my armor and tugged hard. I pushed myself up. She grabbed my face in her hands and kissed me passionately. I responded. She tasted like swamp mud, but it was still great. It was good to be alive.
"I would be mighty appreciative if somebody could tell me what in the hell just happened?" Sam said.
"I died," Lee stated quietly. "I got bit in the neck." He pulled his glove off and ran one hand over his throat. "I left my body."
"Me too," Holly added. "I don't know what got me."
"Fed shot you in the head," I answered.
"Stupid bastard," she said coldly.
"It was an accident. He was getting eaten."
"Still…"
"All of us died." I slowly stood up, searching for the words to explain what I had seen, what I had done. "I… When I got killed…" I stabbed my thumb to my chest. "I saw the Cursed One. I fought him for control of the artifact. I made a wish…"
"You did this?" Julie asked, stunned. She ran one hand down my filthy face. "How?"
"I just don't know." I was way out of my league on this one.
Harbinger had not said anything yet. He slowly sat down on a stump and scowled, deep in thought.
"You seriously made a wish? Like Aladdin and the magic lamp or whatever? And brought us back from the dead? And made all of those things go away?" Sam said.
"I guess."
"Bullshit," he spat, "just ain't no way."
"He didn't bring us back from the dead," Milo said, still kneeling, his back toward us. "We never died."
"I don't know about you, Milo, but I got my damned brains blown out," Holly said.
Milo stood and faced us. "Not what I mean. Yes, we died, but that was erased. That has not happened yet. It would be happening shortly, but it got reversed. Turned back to right now. What we just went through never happened."
"Sure it did," Sam said. "It just happened."
"When?" Milo held up his watch.
"Uh… in the future?"
"Right. So it has not happened."
Sam thought about it for a moment, head cocked sideways as he stroked his walrus mustache. "Screw it. I need a drink."
Franks drifted into our area, his crack federal agents following slowly behind him. They were not moving swiftly now. Rather, they looked as shell-shocked and confused as we did. None of them even reacted at the sight of the unmasked orcs. Compared to what they had just gone through, what were a couple of tusk-faced humanoids?
"Hey, guys," Milo said cheerfully. "Let me guess, you all got killed by orange monster insect demon things too?"
"Yep," Franks answered.
"Oh good, at least we're all on the same page."
The dark Fed just held up his thick arms, looking down at where they had been pierced and shredded by whistling spines. He made a fist and cracked his knuckles, then slowly lowered them.
Harbinger finally spoke. "See, Franks, I told you we should have stayed put."
Franks shrugged. He keyed his radio. No longer disrupted by the unnatural rift in the area, we made immediate radio contact. Myers' voice sounded shaken.
"What's going on out there?" the radio shrieked.
Franks scowled as his straightforward brain tried to figure out how to explain our situation. Harbinger keyed his mike and interrupted.
"It was a trap. Ray Shackleford set us up. We were ambushed by a horde of transdimensional demons. We all got killed. Then time ran backwards. We all woke up alive. And the monsters are gone. Request immediate evac…" He let that hang for a moment. "Over."
"Uh, yeah," Franks concurred.
"Air evac is on the way. What caused the time effect?"
Harbinger looked at me through squinted eyes, but did not betray my secret to the Feds. "Unknown. Suspect it was caused by the Cursed One's artifact. We went back in time approximately five minutes."
"I know," Myers responded. "It wasn't just you. We felt it too. It was 2:39, and then it was 2:34."
"How widespread was the effect?"
"Hold on…" The radio went dead.
Forty quiet Hunters stood packed together in the pounding rain, taking no small amount of comfort from the nearness of other real people. The emotions displayed ran the gamut from confused, to terrified, to shaken, to ecstatic, but mostly to blank thousand-yard stares while our human brains tried to process the impossible. And we were Monster Hunters, either governmental or private, and every one of us was no stranger to the weird or the unexplainable. Shivering from the cold, I put my arm over Julie's shoulder and pulled her close. Slow minutes ticked by. We all waited for Myers' response.
"Sorry… I was told to turn on the news."
"How widespread was the effect?" Harbinger asked again.
The radio crackled.
"Um… Reports are coming in now… the whole world."
"Say again?"
"Earth. Every person on Earth felt it."
We stood in the Monster Control Bureau's giant tent command center, dripping from our showers, stinging from the leech removal process, and aching from the bevy of antibiotic shots given to us to combat the rancid waters of Natchy Bottom. The flat-screen televisions had been changed from satellite imagery to several different cable news channels.
"— continue to drift in. We can now confirm that India, Australia, Bangladesh and Finland also experienced the phenomenon and-"
"Large scale rioting has broken out in Los Angeles, New York, and in several other cities in the continental-"
"Yes, Diane, the President will be addressing us live from Air Force One in a matter of minutes-"
"— the Prime Minister's office has issued a statement for all to remain calm until-"
"— repent sinners! The hour of judgment is at hand! I'm sorry I cheated on my wife, I'm adulterous slime. It's all April the weather girl's fault. Evil slut. Wait… you can't
take me off the air… damn you, Harry! Repent, you heathen bastard! It's the end of the world! The end I say-"
Some of the media people were holding it together better than others. The same could be said for us.
"Maybe it wasn't caused by this artifact," Myers contended.
"Yeah, and maybe I'm Elvis," Harbinger shouted back.
"It could have been a coincidence," the senior agent pleaded.
"Sure, a rift in time just happens to occur as we're fighting the minions of something that we were warned was going to try to control time? Give me a break, Myers."
"I'm the one that has to talk to the President, damn it. I need to give him more than conjecture. I need proof! This is the biggest thing that has ever happened."
"Hell, I'll talk to the Prez," Sam added helpfully. "He's a Texan. He'll understand."
Harbinger ignored his teammate. "Myers, there hasn't been an attack of transdimensional forces since '95. That's a rare enough occurrence as it is. It has to be connected."
"There was the Vanni Fucci incident in Dothan a while back," Julie offered.
"Isolated case," Harbinger said.
"I know that, and you know that. But I need to explain this all to people who don't know a damn thing about monsters. They were already prepared to go all the way to 'final option' to stop Lord Machado; what are they going to do now? Preemptively nuke the whole state into a sheet of glass?"
"That'll alienate the Southern vote for sure," Milo said.
I started to speak. I could tell them exactly what had happened. Julie kicked me in the shin. She shook her head in the negative.
The news continued to babble:
"— UN General Secretary has just called for a unilateral ban on time travel-"
"— I'm telling you, Ken, space aliens are behind this. I talked about it in my book, The Coming Gray Invasion, this is just phase one of their colonization-"
"— does not appear to be as much widespread panic on the other side of the world, since many people appeared to have slept through the disturbance-"
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