Wolves of the Tesseract Collection

by Christopher D Schmitz

  “Theera,” the vyrm stated, standing straight.

  “I have an important task for you, Theera. There is a symbol drawn on the door below: a star with an eye drawn in blood. You must not let that sign dry up. It must stay fresh with blood.” He pointed to the unconscious boy. “Use his blood.” He pointed at another vyrm, “or use his. I do not care. Just do not let it dry. Do you understand?”

  The soldier gulped hard. “Yes.” He knew that the penalty for failure would likely be worse than death.

  Skrom tucked Shandra's limp body under one arm as Walther's energy gate split the air and opened a passage to a large room and the Berlin skyline. The big tarkhūn ducked his head and stepped through, followed by Caivev, the goatman's avatar, and a small army of vyrm.

  Chapter 12

  Two soldiers set the next armload of batteries down at the base of the laser. Everyone in the room had broken a sweat except for Tay-lore who was incapable of it. The android worked feverishly on a new device that resembled a disco ball mounted to a bracket.

  Something had somehow combated their heat ray from the other side preventing their clear passage with an intense cold that kept refreezing the gate almost as soon as it melted.

  “It is almost ready,” Tay-lore said as he affixed the device to a wheeled carriage filled with daisy-chained batteries. “Got it.”

  Harken bent over the machine and set the timer as Wulftone barked orders. "Everyone, try to wipe down as much as possible—sweat in the frigid climate we're detecting can plunge your body temperature to unsafe levels."

  Tay-lore signaled that everything was ready and Harken kicked the wheeled device below the laser’s field and through the portal.

  Everyone in the room held their collective breaths and watched the synchronized timer tick down. As soon as it hit zero Tay-lore’s strobe machine would zap a bubble of intense heat lasers and give them enough space to charge through the breach—but it was a one-way ticket until the celestial bodies aligned again.

  Harken shouted down the time as the troops prepared for an assault on the unknown. Wulftone slung together as many batteries as he could fit on the heavy cable; the lycan shouldered them as if they were a school of fish caught on a stringer. Both men glanced across at their troops, both gazes lingering on Jackie. She reached across and squeezed Gita’s hand despite the terror so obviously lodged in her own eyes.

  “Three! Two! One!”

  Wulftone slammed the button on the laser turret and killed the beam so nobody would trip through it and fry themselves.

  “Move out,” Harken yelled and ran through the mirror with his rifle ready. The troops followed his lead.

  Wulftone yanked the alligator clips off the nearly depleted battery cells laying on the floor and scooped up the beam emitter. “Thanks, Tay-lore. I’m gonna take this with me, just in case.” He ran to shore up the militia’s rear guard.

  Tay-lore bowed as the lycan leapt through the mirror. “Do be careful.”

  ***

  Claire tugged at the collar of her outfit, trying to move some air in the stifling heat. She flapped the cloak around her neck and tried the windows of the dilapidated vehicle. They didn't work and barely managed a crack that flooded the interior with a shrill whine.

  Zabe flipped the switch labeled Air Conditioning and the engine suddenly lost a third of its power as something under the hood made an ugly, grinding sound. Traffic around them switched lanes and zoomed past. He flipped the AC off and the vehicle resumed its normal power. Zabe shrugged apologetically to the rest of the car.

  The black panel van kept pace with them even through the brief slow-down, a sure bet that they were indeed following them. The black automobile finally began to creep closer as Claire peeked at them through the rearview mirror.

  “It says something on the front of their van. Can you read that?”

  Zane craned his neck but had trouble getting an angle.

  “I’ve got it,” said Yardi. “I’ve always had good eyesight. It says ‘How’s my driving, call,’ and then a bunch of numbers.” He read them off as Claire typed them into her cell.

  She put the mobile to her ear for a few moments and then looked to Zabe. “Coronado Iron Solutions? Look that up.” Claire tossed the phone into her copilot’s lap.

  Zabe typed info into her phone's browser, glad that she was focusing on driving, instead. He didn't want to die before meeting their enemies in battle—and the vehicle's handling was already sketchy without the added distraction in her hand.

  "Top two articles," he said, "the first one is a news article about a company merger and buyout by the Heptobscurantum Group, the real estate company. Second one is an old one about the company's stock numbers—it says it was owned by the Wainsmith Holdings, or it was before the sale."

  Claire bit her lip. “Go figure.” She glanced at the mirror again. “Get down!”

  She swerved the car across a couple lanes of traffic as the van’s sliding door opened with a man leaning out. He pointed a fully automatic pistol towards them and unloaded a full magazine.

  Bullets pierced the upper section of the auto glass as Yardi and Spireth leaned into the swerve, ducking as low as possible. They squished Jenner between them as Claire clipped another car which spun out of control and forced the black van to decelerate.

  Claire floored the gas pedal and the car groaned and gasped for more speed. The van swerved around the obstacles and lurched forward. From the opening, the gunman leaned out again and fired off several more magazines worth of ammunition as the battered taxi zigged and zagged through the other cars on the highway.

  The van closed the distance and the passengers, covered in broken glass, could almost see their attackers face as he reracked a new mag full of ammo. Claire slammed on her brakes just as the gunner pulled the trigger. A line of bullets ripped through the asphalt where their car would’ve otherwise been.

  Braking to match, the van swerved and sent the spray of lead wide even as Claire punched the throttle again. The bullets tore through the side panels and tires of two vehicles which collided just as the car zipped past, smashing together to form a twisted metal barrier and forcing the black van to skid to a momentary halt.

  "We're not out of it yet," Claire muttered, catching sight of the van as it plowed through a ditch and merged back onto the highway. It clawed for speed with every cubic inch of its eight-cylinder engine. "Oh no," she gasped with a glance at the rearview mirror. The edge of Mexico City loomed on the horizon—but it would not come fast enough.

  Zabe turned as much as possible and painted a tapestry of curse words. The trio in the backseat turned just in time to see the gunman from the van hoist a rocket launcher over his shoulder.

  A missile streaked towards them on a gray trail of spent propellant even as Claire swerved hard and cut off an old pickup. With flaming fury, the explosive round flipped over the truck she swerved in front of.

  The interior of the cab became a shrieking cacophony of profanity as everyone gave vent to their fears. Another rocket narrowly missed; it slammed into the hot pavement and erupted with volcanic ferocity.

  “There’s the exit—up there!” Zabe shouted hopefully. His heart sank as he watched the assassin shoulder the next rocket and draw a careful bead on their car’s obvious exit path. He instinctively knew that the next shot would strike true.

  A helicopter seemed to zoom out of nowhere sporting the blue and white of the Mexican Police force. The helicopter cut a strafing line across the highway and a gunner opened fire on the black van. It careened through the median, cut across traffic and then got back on course as the other passengers in the dark vehicle opened fire on the aerial with small arms fire.

  “I think we’re going to make it,” Claire shouted as the car climbed the off ramp. She steered through the arcing turn with white knuckles as her passengers watched their pursuit.

  A rocket streaked across the sky, barely missing the police chopper, but it seemed to
drive it off momentarily. The black van accelerated as the helicopter came around again. It hovered a second as it took aim and then a rocket of its own shot out and detonated with trained precision.

  The Heptobscurantum pursuit ended in a heap of blackened debris and melting rubber on the Mexican highway. Police spotters assessed their handiwork for a few seconds and then the chopper climbed for air again just as Claire sped the vehicle through the city at unsafe speeds.

  “They’re coming for us next,” Zabe shouted. “They have no idea who or what we are—they probably think we’re all warring cartel members and plan to shoot first and sort it out later!”

  Claire grinned, keeping an eye on the chopper from the corner of her eye. “With in this fancy car? They should’ve guessed diplomatic envoy.”

  The helicopter began an arc around a cluster of tall buildings that would give them a clear shooting lane.

  Claire hit the cruise control and balanced the steering wheel as best as she could. “Alright. Everybody out!”

  All four doors opened simultaneously and the five warriors abandoned their ride at high speeds. They rolled to a stop and dove for cover as soon as possible.

  As soon as the police chopper cleared the high rises it opened fire with a pair of missiles that streaked to the target with laser precision. The cab exploded with an oily eruption of flame and debris and the husk of Detroit steel skidded to a fiery stop two blocks later; two flaming tires bounced for another two blocks beyond that, but none of the infiltrators from the Prime stuck around to see it—they'd already regrouped in a narrow alley and begun sprinting for their next waypoint on the other side of a run-down ghetto that housed the low-income residents of the north central side of one of the most populous cities in the world.

  ***

  Frozen winds blasted Wulftone as soon as he crossed over and the brilliant, hollow light of the sun tainted everything with somber hues. Explosions blasted all around him and screams of man and vyrm alike pierced the frigid air.

  He ducked his head and darted behind a giant stone column while he took stock of the odd surroundings. A ring of standing pillars identical to Stonehenge encircled the portal location.

  Wulftone flung himself to the ground to avoid the rapid-fire disruptor blasts that peppered the rocky barrier he hid behind. He landed on his back, careful to protect the laser heat emitter and batteries that he carried; glancing up from the frozen earth, he saw the sky from the bottom of a bowl-like basin.

  Tay-lore’s heat bomb had melted away more than just the ice blockade. It burned the top off of what had been some kind of ice bubble protecting the frozen subterranean cave from satellite discovery.

  Ice seemed to grow and fly with blizzard force as Wulftone rolled to his lupine haunches and sprinted towards natural trenches where his friends had dug in. He spotted Harken in a gravelly ravine and he dove for cover even as a trio of laser bursts burned the muscle of his flanks.

  "Glad you could make it," Harken said, ignoring the stench of burning flesh and fur rolling off of the werewolf's smoldering hide. "I'm afraid it may be a one-way trip." He pointed.

  Wulftone’s wounds began stitching themselves up almost immediately, though that fact would do nothing to stop the pain until the nerves fully regenerated. He grunted and grabbed a clawful of ground where ice shards seemed to grow like polar lichen. As the alien forces dug in to assess the surroundings, the portal site began to regrow the ice blockage with supernatural speed and block any further support.

  A sudden blast of arctic air bit Wulftone’s nose and a storm head blew down the slope at the edge of the frozen basin. “Is that a pyramid?” He ducked his head behind the edge of the trench and warmed his nose.

  “It sure looks like it,” Jackie said, approaching in a kind of half-crouched run. “It’s built into the side of that ice shelf—well, the shelf probably formed around it.” She crawled into his arms.

  Wulftone glanced down at her in surprise.

  “The thing I remember most about lycans is how hot your skin is,” she said, trying to downplay how secure his arms made her feel.

  Wulftone shrugged. “Okay, but what’s causing all this snow? It’s certainly not natural.”

  Harken tossed him a pair of thermal binoculars. “Look at that cloud two thirds up the hill.”

  He held the device to his eyes and poked his head up over the ridge. Scanning the horizon he easily spotted the heat signatures from the vyrm forces who each wore a special suit with hot wires seaming the outfit to provide constant warmth necessary to their reptilian physiology. Wulftone focused on the swirling cloud of cold that emanated from a humanoid figure in the middle; ice and snow churned around him like a freezing tornado. Wulftone dropped the binocs.

  “Yeah,” Harken joked with a shudder, “I wish we’d have thought up suits like that.”

  "Its body temperature is sub-zero—is that thing…"

  “Yeah,” Harken filled in the blanks. “It’s a tarkhūn frostmancer!”

  “I thought they were extinct following the Syzygyc War?”

  “Apparently not,” Jackie spat, starting to shiver again. “How are we supposed to get up to that temple with evil Frosty the Snow-vyrm up there?”

  Wulftone slapped a man wearing Guardian Corps armor and a thermal facemask on the shoulder. “You got any ideas?”

  Sam Jones peeled his mask off much to Harken and Jackie’s surprise. “Not particularly. But at the rate that creature is able to regenerate the ice, I’m afraid that we will all be stuck here permanently, and soon, if we don’t act immediately. Every minute that passes,” he gazed longingly towards the sloped temple entrance, “and the chances of our success decreases.”

  The lycan grinned at Harken as he placed the thermal goggles on his head lopsidedly. “You guys make sure you cover us. This involves arcane artifacts and so it falls to the Guardian Corps.” He tucked the heat laser under an arm and yelled to his forces, “Let’s show these snakes a little revenge for what they did three years ago!”

  All corpsmen under his charge took up a shout and Wulftone leapt past the ravine’s edge and charged up the slope, howling. Still shouting, the rest of the Guardian Corps followed him at top speed, ignoring the defensive disruptor bursts and the icy winds that bit their faces.

  “Attack!” yelled Harken.

  The vyrm hidden within drifts along the slope fired recklessly at Wulftone who shrugged off the burning bolts that hit him. He drew their fire and Harken’s troops pinpointed the enemy who gave away their relatively undefended positions by attacking. Any who held their fire still found themselves targeted by Harken’s sniper fire as he picked off unit after unit that his thermal vision located.

  Only half a dozen of Wulftone’s men fell, though the commander could barely keep his pace as jolt after jolt of energy wracked his body with pain. His corps zigged and zagged up the mountain, avoiding as much fire as possible. “Shoot that frostmancer!” he screamed as he and the troops opened fire while making a line for the shifting white dunes.

  The vyrm further up the hillock fell into retreat and headed towards the temple mouth. Harken’s forces cheered and crawled over the lip in pursuit. They added their weapons to the corpsmen and charged.

  A giant bastion of ice protected the frostmancer who battered the forces with a frigid gale of ice shrapnel that drove them many to their knees and buried others up to their waists in powder. Blaster bolts chipped away at his frozen blockade, sending him further up the hill where he conjured another frosty barrier.

  Another column of ice rose from the snow, growing in height and girth. The wind hissed and roared, carrying the rage of the frostmancer even as his massive ice tower shook the frigid basin.

  Wulftone suddenly realized what the vyrm intended it for. He snapped the laser up used the ruby heat beam to slice through its base like a sword through yew. The column tipped and fell, hurtling to the ground like a hammer. He set off the vyrm trap prematurely and the tip of the tow
er smashed to the slope mere meters from his charging troops.

  Swiping the hill with the radiant beam, Wulftone bathed the tarkhūn’s ice barrier with heat and weakened it so that his force’s blaster fire effortlessly disintegrated the shields.

  Another ice wall went up and fell. And then another rose and broke as they beat the villain back far enough that he retreated into the temple.

  With the raging winds finally subsiding, both Harken’s and Wulftone’s troops charged up the slope in pursuit. They halted in front of the yawning entryway to the tiered pyramid-like structure; the aperture had iced over with such an intense temperature that it radiated cold and misted the air even in the sub-zero climate.

  Wulftone dropped his stringer of batteries and unslung the laser’s tripod mechanism in order to configure the device as Tay-lore had done earlier. He glanced back down the slope with a grimace and noted the standing stones had been completely iced over again, barring the portal’s use. He muttered, “I just hope we’ll have enough battery power left over for a return trip.”

  ***

  The five foreigners tried to remain inconspicuous as they walked the backstreets of the run-down inner-city neighborhood of Mexico City. This part was off the visitor guides, hidden beneath the thin veneer of nearby tourist attractions. They passed only blocks from safe places Claire had visited previously with her father.

  Claire and her companions didn't fool anyone and the few people loitering in the streets kept a wide berth of the suspicious strangers. A greedy teen, trying his best to look as if he'd been careless or didn't mind the intruder's presence, walked too close. Claire said to Zabe, "Mira sus manos."

  The boy looked her dead in the eye and grinned smugly when she identified him as a pickpocket. Zabe didn’t understand, but the pickpocket did, and it was better for him that Zabe didn’t speak the tongue; the native followed for half a block cockily shouting explicit threats at Claire. If Zabe had understood, it might’ve resulted in a bloody detour.