For the second time in the last hour, my eyes begin to flood. A tear squeezes through my eyelids and follows a salt-glazed trail down my cheek, a trail formed less than an hour ago when I believed I had an entire lifetime of magnificent possibilities ahead. I’m not ready to give up on that future. I’m not ready to give up hope. Through my contemplative cone of silence I can hear the beasts’ noises all around and closing fast. I want to go home, to Carver, to be with Mel and the rest of my alliance family. I want it from the depths of my soul, stirring a fluttering pulsation, one not produced by my heart and felt in my chest, but one that pervades my skin, building to an eruptive crescendo at the same time that the first beast lands on my shoulders. As it digs its gnarly claws into my flesh, I snap.
Both arms reach for the hellion in a blur and, as soon as my hands find something to grab, I rip it from my back, the creature taking out several chunks of skin within its clutches. With every scintilla-infused muscle fiber answering the call, I slam the creature against the gym floor with a resounding thud. The sight of dark blood already oozing from the motionless beast’s ears does nothing to dissuade my savagery. I must make an example of this fiendish creature. I step firmly on its neck, wrap one hand under its jaw and the other around the base of its skull, and pull. I pull with my arms and with my back. I pull with my legs. I pull with a guttural growl of madness until something snaps, the greasy skin and muscles stretch to their breaking point, and the hellion’s baboon-like head rips free from its body. When I look up to invite my next challenger, painted with my blood and that of the creature, I see the flabbergasted faces of Mel, Reb, Vic, Doc, Drake, Pam, and several others staring on in disbelief.
That peculiar fluttering sensation must’ve marked the moment I bridged my way back home, meaning that I just decimated that beast in front of everyone. It takes a couple seconds before I notice the rippling mirages standing in the exact positions of the creatures in the Pneuma Rigma and realize that I’ve been seeing their stalking presence through the dimensional divide ever since I arrived at Carver, maybe longer. They’ve been following, watching, and slipping away before I could confront them. The realization brings new questions to mind like why the others can’t see them, how they could simply dissipate as I approached, and what they were able to see and hear during their observation, but now is not the time to flesh these out.
“Ted?” asks Mel, unsure if it’s even me. “What happened? What was that thing?”
I drop the hellion’s head and march past her, straight for Reb.
Vic asks, “Where’d you go?”
“I bridged the Pneuma Rigma,” I answer in the manner I might tell someone that I took out the trash. I reach Reb and grab him by the shoulders, leaving bloody handprints. With mania in my eyes and urgency on my breath, I nearly shout, “Send a runner. Send one now. We have to warn the others and get the families out of here.”
Calmly, despite his obvious confusion, he asks, “Why, Ted? What’s going on?”
“They’re coming. He’s coming! The Nephilim monster from my visions, the same one who broke into my apartment in Port Ellis. He’s coming to kill all of us!” I warn frantically.
Reb leans to his left and looks past me to scrutinize the dark gray carcass. He then trains an unnerving gaze on Vic and orders purposefully, “Go, Vic, warn the others. Tell them to get in their vehicles and drive straight to the rally point alpha.” Vic starts to jog away as Reb yells, “Tell them to leave everything behind. Time is of the essence!”
A racket builds as the others inspect the creature’s corpse and react to Reb’s validation of my warnings. Drake is crouched low near the beast, craning his neck and using a pen to lift and examine its hand. He pops up and walks to the severed head then crouches again, shoving the pen into a nostril in order to turn it for a better look. To him the scene is just another day on the job, although probably his first with a demonic humanoid victim.
“Kinda looks like an evil baboon except that it would be at least seven feet tall with its head attached and it smells like death and sweet shit. How many of these were there?” Drake inquires.
“There were six. I killed two, but he may come through with more, and those things are only part of the problem. I don’t know who this Nephilim is, but he’s enormous and powerful like I’ve never seen before. He tried to seduce me to the ways of the wicked Nephilim, but I told him to go to hell.”
Drake looks at me with eyebrows raised in amusement. “You said that, Teddy boy?” he asks with a laughing snort. “Look at the stones on you!”
The atmosphere stirs with a musky breath that slides across my neck. Building gradually in intensity, the disturbance swells to become a steady breeze that whirls throughout the gymnasium. I look to Mel, who predicts my thoughts and responds.
“This is similar to what happened when you vanished and again when you reappeared. Although, this is a little more…”
The lamp topples from the table and I snap around, expecting the worst, but it was just the growing wind. Unfortunately, the relief is short lived, fractured by the appearance of dozens of mirages racing in through the gym door, flooding through like a firehose, then leaping around the gym. Hell has arrived, and it’s only a matter of seconds until they breach the divide.
“Are any of you seeing this?” I ask desperately.
None of them answer aloud, but their panicked faces search the empty gym for something, anything.
“Seeing what, Ted?” asks Reb.
“They’re everywhere. The mirages. I’m seeing their presence on the other side of the divide, in the Pneuma Rigma. There are dozens of those beasts.”
Without hesitation, Drake unholsters his service pistol and releases the magazine. Satisfied with his ammo count, he reinserts the mag and racks the slide, chambering a round. Doc approaches Drake, who hands the firearm over then reaches down and hikes up his right pant leg, revealing a five-round .38 Special revolver. He unstraps the holster and withdraws the pistol. Thumbing the cylinder release and flicking his wrist, he opens the cylinder to confirm its ammo count, then slaps it shut and reaches to his right where Pam retrieves the gun.
“Wish I had time to get the ARs, but we’ll have to make do with these,” he says to the two of them.
His hand slides down the small of his back and lifts his shirt to retrieve yet another handgun; this one for himself. The ammo-check routine is repeated, and he chambers the first round in the magazine before he begins a short tactical briefing.
“Okay, remember your training. Keep your finger outside of the trigger guard until you’re ready to shoot. Never point the muzzle at anything you don’t want to kill. Pam, if you have a misfire, just keep squeezing the trigger. Doc, if you have one you have to drop the mag, rack the slide, clear the brass, reinsert the mag, and release the slide just like we practiced. Let’s move to the corner with the emergency exit and keep everything in front of us. I want overlapping fields of fire outward from this point. If you run out of ammo, turn and bolt through the exit unless we’ve reduced their numbers enough to have a fighting chance.”
“What are we supposed to do while you’re slinging lead all over the room? And what happened to not using guns?” I question.
Reb interjects, “You know why we don’t use guns, but out here in the middle of nowhere, facing enemy numbers like what you’re describing, we need the firepower, and there’s no one around to hear it. As for what you’re going to do while they unleash a storm of bullets, you’re coming with us.”
Mel wraps her arm through Reb’s, and with her help he moves faster than I thought possible. I start to follow before I turn back, irked by the kid-glove treatment.
“Wait. Why am I being sidelined? I killed two of those things by myself—alone and unarmed—and I’m not even our best fighter. If we get the families to safety then stand together, we should be strong enough to win.”
“Should isn’t a risk I can accept,” replies Reb, somehow still calm. “If there are that many of those beasts
and possibly more demonic Nephilim like him that are about to breach the Pneuma Rigma bent on our destruction, the odds are not in our favor. What you did here today will bring immeasurable hope to the alliance, and not just here at Carver but the global alliance. The ability you gained to enter the Pneuma Rigma has the enemy scared—and they should be—because they can’t win against an alliance that can move to and fro without a trace, snatching up their converts and minions, tearing apart their network of control over humanity. But none of that happens if you die today. You are a living Verdonos. Do you remember how those stories inspired you, how they made you feel?”
“Yes. They gave me something concrete to aspire to, even if a part of me never believed it was possible.”
“Can you imagine how you would have felt if you knew unequivocally that bridging the Pneuma Rigma was not only possible but that your hero was real, alive and well, and available to teach you how to be a hero too?”
“I would’ve wished for it every birthday and dreamt of it every night. I wouldn’t have accepted anything less than becoming as great a hero as him.”
“Then you see why we have to go?”
“Yes. But, Reb, it’s a suicide mission. Pam, Doc, Drake…they won’t survive.”
“You don’t know that, Ted. Regardless, the choice is theirs to make and they’ve made their choice. They’ve been training hard for a moment like this for years, and I know that they are honored to finally have an opportunity to fight for the families of Carver and for you,” Reb asserts as I note their nods of agreement. “Say your goodbyes, Ted. We need to go.”
Doc is already stepping in my direction and throws his arms around me in a hearty man-hug complete with back patting.
“Make us proud, bro. Don’t ever doubt yourself; you’re a living legend. I’m glad to have known ya!” he says in his congenitally chipper tone that feels, for once, artificial given the circumstances.
Pam waits a step behind Doc and offers a warm, cheek-to-cheek Southern hug.
“We’re all blessed to have shared this week with you, Ted,” she says sniffling. “Take care of Reb. He’s the closest thing to a father I’ve ever had. And take care of yourself, ya hear? We love you, Ted.”
She gives me a peck on the cheek that intercepts the tear streaming toward my jaw. I hold her tight and fully appreciate how much each of these relationships has come to mean over such a short time. We separate, and as she steps aside I see Drake behind her, surveying the room. However adversarial our interactions have been, it’s always been clear that Sergeant Julius Drake is a selfless man of honor, the most admirable human being I’ve met in my lifetime. This is exactly how such a courageous man deserves to die: in a heroic last stand to preserve the promising future of the alliance.
In what are most likely the waning moments of his existence, offering me a heartfelt goodbye is understandably not his highest priority. I swallow whatever pride still loiters within the recesses of my skull and approach him for a loaded handshake, one overflowing with a subtext of gratitude, admiration, apology, and solace. He pauses his survey of the room that’s still empty in his eyes and locks pupils with me.
“You don’t have to do this, Drake. We can all make a break for it, go in different directions.”
“You’re wrong about that, Tedarina. I do have to do this. Even if every single one of us runs separately, we have to assume that there’s more than enough of them to pursue each of us to our first stop and slaughter us there. Someone has to stay here and slow them down so the rest of you can escape.”
The wind howls through the rafters as a perfectly round void not much bigger than a basketball appears in the middle of the room. Ambient light arcs in refracted waves around the object, preserving but distorting the space behind it. Paper thin and black with the absence of matter, this void is something beyond what I used to breach the Pneuma Rigma; it’s a gateway for an army. My ability allowed me to pass between planes and, by extension, the ghoul that was on my back, but I haven’t even begun to approach such power. It’s a manipulation of creation itself, a fusing of two separate dimensional planes never meant to be conjoined for free passage. I look back into Drake’s eyes, now seasoned with a dash of fear by the appearance of the gateway.
“It’s game time, Ted. You need to get the hell out of here. Do right by Reb and Mel, brother.”
Brother.
It’s hard to imagine such an unrelatable word feeling like such a perfect fit. I’ve never had much of a family, no real brothers or sisters (that I know of), so I can only guess what it’s like to have a brother. Either way, the bickering, competition, and rivalry between us was destined to give way to loyalty to each other and to our cause, and a mutual, unspoken admiration. All of that sounds very brotherly.
I put on my bravest face and respond, “I will, brother. You have my word. Give ‘em hell, Julius.”
“You know I will. Oh, and Ted, make sure they write songs about us.”
He withdraws his hand with a cocky smirk and turns back toward the swelling void in the center of the room. His weapon at the ready, bravely facing down a supernatural threat against all odds, he is something more than human and I don’t just respect him, I want to be like him. Then a thought arrives as if delivered from outside of my body: perhaps human is exactly what he is and nothing more. Perhaps this is the moment Mel predicted when I would see that the source of my own strength and courage stems from my humanity. I’ve known plenty of Nephilim that wouldn’t have the courage to so boldly embrace their death for the sake of others. This is his legacy. Rallying the troops for a glorious last stand that will save the lives of many; who could hope for a more meaningful death?
Like a giant, unstable pupil, it dilates to the size of a beach ball, then shrinks to a baseball; inflates as large as a train tunnel, then rapidly constricts back to a basketball. Drake takes aim and orders the others to form up. They take their positions shoulder to shoulder, backs to the emergency exit, covering all angles of the gymnasium. From the exit, Mel clutches my arm and pulls me vigorously away from the battle I started but am powerless to finish. In my silent sorrow I vow that it will never happen again. Next time, I finish my own fight or die trying.
“Come on, Ted. We’re running out of time to get ahead of this. We need to go now!”
We make it one step outside the emergency exit and toward the awaiting car when Doc’s voice cries out, “Oh my God,” with more fear than I’ve ever heard from a grown man. I glance back over my shoulder and witness through the waning sliver of the closing door a funnel cloud of scurrying black hellions rocketing through the wide-open, now stabilized gateway. Sporadic gunshots crack like popcorn within the gym’s block walls, their report only slightly muted by the mortar and stone. In the driver’s seat of the same battered Crown Victoria that brought me to Carver, Vic impatiently fidgets as Mel and I approach, fling open the door, and dive into the back seat. Reb pats Vic from the front passenger seat, saying, “They’re in. Let’s go!”
Before he can floor it, something slams against the gym’s exit doors, shocking everyone in the car, then falls through onto the concrete outside. Our heads snap left in unison and our faces distort with horror and sadness as we recognize what remains of Doc’s face. Unrelenting, the horde allows only a glimpse of our dying brother before dragging him back into the gym, arms dangling in tow, limp as noodles.
“Drive, Vic,” Reb orders sternly.
The wheels yelp as he stomps on the gas, then yowl through his high-speed left turn onto the county road, then silently endure the abuse as he slams the gas pedal again. Its engine growling and transmission thrashing, the vehicle drags us farther and farther from Carver until the steadily shrinking town is absorbed into the horizon, taking with it at least three of our beloved family members. While Vic focuses on the road ahead, the rest of us stare aimlessly into the past, far more worried about Doc, Pam, and Drake than whether or not we’re being followed. It’s hard to accept that they’re gone, and with no confirmation
of that fate, it may always feel like a bad dream. While the others undoubtedly hope against all odds that they’re still alive, I’m not so optimistic. They haven’t met that dead-eyed Nephilim bastard or seen his sadistic beasts alive and virulent.
I quietly hope it was a quick death, one as painless and honorable as possible, but if I’m honest with myself I’m not sure that even matters. The dead are gone, and whatever horrors escorted them to the blissful numbness of the afterlife makes no difference to them once it’s over. Free from the burdens and limitations of this life, they float amidst a tranquil, healing sea. I don’t envy them, but they have made it through the woods. They have crested the summit and now have gravity on their side. They will never again face the struggles of this earthly existence. As for me, my struggle is just beginning, and I know just where to find my next fight.
“Reb, I don’t mean to be insensitive, but this fight isn’t over and we need to know more about our enemy,” I boldly assert, confident that my abilities have earned me some clout with the alliance leadership.
“I agree. Do you have something in mind?” he replies.
“Yes. During my vision he mentioned Jan’s name. I think he converted her to her wicked ways, and I think Jan may know who he is.”
Reb considers this briefly. “She isn’t going to freely answer your questions, Ted. Especially if that monster will be bringing harsh retribution if she talks. How will you get her to cooperate?”
“I don’t think there’s anything I could do to get her to cooperate, but I have a plan to get the information we need. With that dead-eyed freak and his army back at Carver, we have the perfect opportunity to make a move on her without his interference. It’s the immediate counterpunch we need to throw, but I’m going to need you to trust me, and I’m going to need to bring Mel with me.”
Verity Rising (Gods of Deceit Book 1) Page 27