Heaven's Eyes

by Jason A Anderson

  With a shriek that would have rivaled the Horror Movie Scream Queens displayed two rooms over, Clovis launched himself at the man, mania in his eyes and murder in his heart.

  Chapter 59

  “Tag-Team”

  As long as I can keep the hellhound’s attention on me, Kiah reasoned, Brenden has a chance of making it out of this alive. Even as he thought it, he wondered how accurate he was. The demonic menace had swiped at the Guardian a couple of times. Each attempt had given Brenden a chance to try and wriggle free, but the beast’s claws were digging into the SoulChaser’s chest, anchoring him in place.

  Kiah noticed a sudden pressure at his sides right at his beltline. Without looking away, he reached both hands down and found the handles of two sais sheathed on his belt. Immediately he drew both three-pronged silver weapons, feeling a little more confidence about how this confrontation could end.

  As if sensing the shift in threat, the hellhound quit growling quite as much and appeared to back off. Then, it lunged forward and snapped its mammoth jaws at the Guardian.

  Kiah jabbed at the hellhound’s head, grateful that it had shifted its weight off Brenden.

  Around them, the crowd had created a clearing. Some onlookers cheered, others remained silent, but clearly none of them really understood what they were seeing.

  Hoping to draw the hellhound away from the crowd, Kiah didn’t let up on the beast. He continued to slash and dodge, jab and weave.

  And then Brenden rolled loose and the rapier-like claws tore and shredded the patch of hard-packed ground.

  Blood seeped from the two punctures in Brenden’s upper chest, but he still managed to get to his feet.

  “You OK?” came from Kiah, on the other side of the creature. It roared and swiped, black ichorous blood seeping from several points where Kiah had scored hits with the blades.

  “Yeah, just bleeding,” Brenden said.

  “SoulChaser, heal thyself,” Kiah said, able to inject a little sarcasm into the comment.

  Taking several cleansing breaths, Brenden rolled his shoulders to loosen them, then he ran forward, grabbed the hellhound’s spiny black tail and pulled hard.

  The hellhound roared and began to turn to take a bite out of Brenden, but once its neck was exposed, Kiah lunged in and buried first one blade all the way into its neck, then the other up through its chin, clamping the beast’s jaw shut.

  Stifling a dying roar, the hellion thrashed left, then right, then collapsed to the ground.

  Brenden kept his eye on the beast as its hide began to bubble with sores that consumed it in mere seconds. He circled the bubbling mass to reach Kiah’s side as the last of the hellhound collapsed in on itself, ending up as a large stinking puddle of goo.

  With care, Kiah extracted the two holy weapons and sheathed them, then said, “You gonna make it?”

  With a nod, Brenden said, “The bleeding’s stopped. I’ll be fine.”

  Looking around them, Kiah noticed the confused crowd. He took Brenden by the arm and gently turned him in the direction of the nearby museum exhibit. “Let’s go, before someone begins asking awkward questions,” he said.

  Above them, the fireworks lit up the cloudy sky in a rainbow of color. The boom from the pyrotechnics was echoed by a threatening thunder crash and a light sprinkling of tiny droplets began.

  Leaving the goo to seep into the earth, the two men disappeared into the crowd.

  Chapter 60

  “All the Players Now Present”

  Kathryn coasted the stolen motorcycle with the faded orange Harley-Davidson logo on the gas tank to a stop on the age-broken asphalt of the Landmark Resort. She looked up at the swirl of dark clouds, illuminated by fireworks creating artificial starlight. Beyond the fireworks, she could see lightning beginning to form and she guessed there were only a few minutes before the light sprinkling of rain – now an annoyance to the Centennial goers across the highway – turned into a torrential downpour.

  As the rest of the team arrived, they shut down their vehicles and wordlessly began gearing up. All fourteen of them carried a firearm and as much ammunition as they could stuff into their pockets. With over a dozen rogues in the immediate area, and at least two across the highway, Kathryn hoped that the four SoulStars scattered among them would be enough.

  “Why is it that we never have a retrieval when the weather’s nice?” Dillon asked, feeding a shotgun shell into the pump-action weapon and cycling the mechanism, then feeding another in.

  “I don’t think it’s in our contract,” Kathryn said back, checking her AR-15 magazine to make sure it was full of .223 rounds. She had seven other mags stashed away, all within easy grasp.

  It took very little time for everyone to gear up and soon the pack stood in front of the large, black gate. Above them, in faded glory, read Landmark Resort in an arch.

  Kathryn walked up and shook the gate, finding it tightly secured with chains and padlocks. Stepping back, she said, “Bishop.”

  The tall man came forward with a large set of bolt cutters. A few moments later they were inside.

  As the group spread out to cover the entire entrance concourse, Dillon edged over to Kathryn and said, “That power surge we felt a while back can only mean one thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Hellions have been let through. There’s a stench of them all over this area. I noticed it when we pulled in,” Dillon said.

  With a lesser sensitivity to Void energy than Dillon, Kathryn deferred to him.

  “There’s nothing we can do about it right now,” she said.

  “But with this much movement, this place is gonna be overrun before too long.”

  Kathryn glared sideways at him and said, “There’s nothing we can do about that right now. Just keep focused on the rogues. They’re going to keep us plenty busy.”

  Dillon nodded and drifted back to his positions a couple arms’ lengths away.

  Dillon could worry a person to death, Kathryn knew. But she also respected his skills as a SoulChaser; if he said they were going to be overrun with Hellions, she had to come up with a contingency plan. They couldn’t take down rogues if they were fighting off monsters, too.

  Chapter 61

  “Focused Pursuit”

  Together, Brenden and Kiah hurried down the main thoroughfare. They moved with purpose, eyes never panicked, continually scanning the path ahead and now-and-then glancing into the shadowed areas between the vendor stalls.

  Brenden could sense Levahn ahead of them, of that he was sure, and he wasted little effort on distractions.

  A young man in his late teens stood as the attendant at the wide entrance to the museum building. With all of the commotion and uproar caused by the First Night Ceremonies, Brenden barely heard the young man’s kind greeting, following the gesture to enter and enjoy the exhibit.

  Brenden immediately found the difference in lighting from the wild colors outside to the stark white displays inside a little bothersome. He blinked a few times to get his eyes to adjust to the glare, then he moved on without a care for the exhibit pieces on display around him.

  It came as a bit of a relief that the large building did a reasonable job of muting the cacophony of exterior sounds, making it possible for the SoulChaser to concentrate on audio emanating from deeper within the building. Senses enhanced by his Calling told him Levahn was not far ahead. In fact, the rogue almost radiated like a beacon. With confidence he soldiered on, Kiah a lockstep behind.

  Chapter 62

  “Storm Rising”

  Masaal looked up at the swirling, dark clouds above them as the first light drops of rain landed on his face. He recognized the pattern in the storm forming above, having seen it many times. Workings of Void energy, what mortals on many worlds called magic, always played havoc with the weather. That was how he could
always tell if someone was authentic or not. If thunder and rain fell outside, he could feel confident that the working was real.

  Not that he needed the weather to tell him that this time. The dark energy radiating from the old amusement park across the highway was almost palpable. The Dark Lady knew what she was doing, of that he had no doubt.

  Looking out over the heads of the audience in the arena, he could see people reacting to the declining weather. His curiosity piqued, he wondered how long it would take to shut this farcical celebration down. Once that happened, he stood a better chance of grabbing the boy and getting out without being discovered.

  Thunder roared and echoed from one end of the valley to the other, sending a chill racing up and down Masaal’s back, tickling the crown of his head. Soon, he and his son would be reunited. It would be the beginning of a new age on Earth, with he and his son at its center. He couldn’t help feeling elation beginning to swell inside.

  Chapter 63

  “Chasing the Madness”

  Screaming obscenities in a language Levahn had never heard, Clovis charged at him again, swinging a steel prop sword that had once been in the hands of an Arthurian Knight statue standing nearby.

  Levahn managed to side-slip past the enraged rogue, clipping him awkwardly on the shoulder blade as he did. He had no idea who this rogue was or why he had it in for Levahn, but with the exception of the shocking initial attack, Levahn had managed to stay out of the lunatic’s striking range. With the weapon, Levahn felt his attacker held a solid advantage.

  Looking around, nothing came immediately to hand. He may have to hold off the man until he could either get away or fortune smiled on him and offered up something he could use as a weapon.

  However, before the hunched, drooling stranger could mount an effective offensive, two men rushed out of the darkness of a side hall.

  “Kiah!” Levahn exclaimed, then dove away as Clovis charged by, swinging the sword.

  Kiah skidded to a stop as Clovis careened past him. “What the–” His exclamation was clipped by the frantic look in Levahn’s eyes.

  Beside Kiah, Brenden had halted, as well. Amazement colored his face as he looked between the two rogues, when he had expected only one.

  “What’s going on here?” Kiah demanded. His sheer force of will magnified his presence as a Guardian, radiating off of him.

  Brenden took a half-step away before he realized Kiah was focusing his attention on the rogues.

  Levahn looked rapt, gazing at his sister’s husband as if for the first time. He even had a slight smile on his lips and the panic had disappeared from his eyes.

  Clovis, on the other hand, spat at Kiah, his wild eyes and froth collecting at the corner of his angry mouth, both indicators that his soul had lost control of the body – now driven insane by the foreign soul within it. Muttering curses at the Guardian, Clovis swayed slightly from side to side, as if preparing to make a bolt either way.

  “What’s he saying?” Brenden asked.

  Kiah’s slow nod preceded his reply, “I think he’s insulting our parentage in his native tongue. It sounds like he only knew English because it’s the native language of his host. I’ve seen this happen before. The rogue soul struggles for whatever control it can still wield over the host body. In this case, he’s exerting the last of his ability to communicate. Eventually, that’ll be gone, too.”

  “Yeah, well, right back at ’cha, stupid slag,” Brenden snapped at Clovis, but still made no move to approach Levahn. “Any ideas where junior, here, came from?”

  “Well, you and Pol each came down, I’m guessing to recover Levahn and his unnamed sparring partner. If both rogues are here without him, that can only mean Pol got hit before he could finish the job. That’s unfortunate. He’ll take it personally.”

  Kiah held his hands out, palms down, trying to reign in the Guardian aura and present a less imposing persona. He noticed Brenden and Levahn ease up a touch, but Clovis’ unnerving sway became more pronounced.

  “All right, there’s a couple of ways we can do this,” he said and took a step forward.

  Just as he had hoped to avoid, Clovis darted away into the darkness.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” Levahn yelled and charged after Clovis.

  “Levahn! Wait!” Brenden called out, then struck out after the fleeing rogues.

  Looking skyward, Kiah shook his head and said, “I don’t remember there being this much running.” Then he, too, set out in pursuit.

  Chapter 64

  “Hellion Infestation”

  From where Kathryn and her team had taken cover, they had a lousy angle on the hellions they had stumbled over during their initial sweep of Landmark Resort. Lucky for her, she hadn’t lost anyone in the initial chaotic skirmish, but from where she and Dillon had taken shelter, she had no clear line of sight on the hellhounds or the octocrawlers. Nor did she have a reasonable idea of how many hellions had gathered. The hellhounds and octocrawlers were what they knew of. There could be ghouls, corpse walkers or any number of reanimated dead waiting in the shadows, if Angelique had succeeded in completing her summoning preparations.

  She heard Dillon curse nearby, then he said, “I could really use some salt rounds right about now. I’m out.”

  If she hadn’t known how good a shot Dillon was, she would have planned on chastising him later for wasting precious ammunition; instead, she reached into one of her many pouches, grabbed a long rifle clip and tossed it across the twenty-foot-wide pathway. At the apex of its arc, it glinted from the ambient light, then lit up as a spout of flame rushed down the center of the path.

  Dillon caught the clip and swapped it for his spent one.

  Flames? Kathryn thought, great, that’s all we need. Then she yelled across the way, “Looks like they’ve got at least one draconi.”

  “Really?” Dillon yelled back. “What was it that gave it away?” He stepped out from his hiding place and sprayed salt-impregnated rounds down into the hellion’s hiding place. Then he ducked back under cover, narrowly avoiding being baked by another spew of orange flames.

  With her chin, Kathryn keyed her communicator mic. “Bradford, please light the way,” she said, wincing as more flames played back and forth across the corridor. From the narrower, yet longer, shape of the horizontal incinerator, she guessed that the draconi was moving slowly toward them. “Incoming firefly!”

  A second later, from a nearby rooftop, the thump, then the sparking trail of a small mortar arced out over them, falling with a clanging sound among the hellions.

  “Perfect!” Kathryn called, protecting her eyes and ears by turning away from the corridor completely.

  The concussive “whomp!” from the mortar rattled her bones. Without waiting, she snapped down the dark lenses from her military goggles and charged out into the corridor. Beside her, Dillon matched her step-for-step, his goggles down as well. They neatly reduced the blinding light given off by the mortar to a manageable level, illuminating the scattered bodies of the hellions, most of which hadn’t come close to recovering from the concussion and searing light.

  Now holding the upper hand, Dillon and Kathryn made short work of eliminating this batch of hellions, clearing the corridor for the rest of the team.

  With her goggles still down, Kathryn looked almost as alien as the dead creatures around her, which slowly congealed into ectoplasmic sludge. “Nice job, Bradford. We’re going to move forward, but I need you to keep a high-point POV.”

  “Copy that,” Bradford’s response chattered in her right ear where her com-unit rested.

  Dillon kept up a constant vigil as he and Kathryn waited for the rest of the team to find their way to them. The last one to arrive was Bishop, who’s ash-smudged face looked grim. “We lost Simons, Celica and Arnold.”

  Kathryn gave everyone a moment for the news to sink
in, then said, “OK, there’s no way Angelique doesn’t know we’re here. Without recon, we could be walking into a firestorm of trouble. Once we get closer, I’ll have Bradford advance and see if he can get eyes or ears on her, but until then, stay cold and remember, we don’t have any friends here.”

  Her quick pep talk rejuvenated her team’s resolve and with a few simple hand gestures, everyone fanned back out to continue their sweep, every step taking them closer and closer to their objective.

  As they moved, however, Kathryn couldn’t help but feel that her team had less than favorable odds for successful completion of this operation.

  Chapter 65

  “Selfless Sacrifice”

  Kiah had no idea how large the fairgrounds exhibition hall was, but to him it seemed to go on forever. Still in pursuit of the two rogues, having caught up with Brenden, they ran past extensive displays of the golden age of Science Fiction, Thrillers and Horror as depicted in film, television and print. Without time to stop and really examine the displays, Kiah could only guess from what he saw in quick glances as he turned corners and ran past down long display corridors, it all seemed very authentic.

  Eventually, he noticed they were ascending a metal walkway that leveled out at the second floor. He had lost sight of the rogues, but experience told him Brenden could’ve followed them through the blackest night without hesitation.

  He was almost ready to give in and follow Brenden, when the shrill cry of terror from a little girl echoed out from around the far corner. It was followed by angry, scared protests from a man and woman.