Wolves of the Tesseract Collection

by Christopher D Schmitz

  Jackie and Gita joined Harken’s cover fire as Wulftone protected their flank with his powerful claws. Sam slid across the floor with more than enough protection.

  Harken’s eyes caught sight of a darquematter carving just on the other side of the pillar he leaned against for cover. He glanced back to Sam who used his tiny knife to feverishly cut at Shandra’s bonds. Harken looked back to the artifact that he intuitively knew was the hierophanticus necessary to open the gate.

  He leapt around the edge of the column and hurried towards the arcane carving while keeping his enemies pinned down with his rifle. He reached out to grab the hierophanticus just as Shandra rolled off the table and into Sam’s arms.

  Suddenly, the four-legged tentacle beast bound around the corner and leapt towards Harken with unbelievable speed and ferocity. It tore through Harken's midsection before he could react with anything more than a scream. The abyssal monstrosity plunged its head into Harken's torso with bone-crunching power and wrapped the tendrils of its wicked maw around the soldier's spine before shaking with unbelievable violence.

  Harken’s body snapped and thrashed like a ragdoll. Blood splattered everywhere as the beast shook its prey to pieces, slicking the kill zone with gore and effluence.

  Jackie stood to her feet, dumbstruck for a split second. Grief and rage suddenly overtook her and she charged towards the next closest pillar, mowing down her enemies, screaming the whole way.

  Sam escorted Shandra towards the escape tunnel and helped push her up the slippery slope. He looked back to find the vyrm forces drawing closer to protect the glowing, eldritch portal that had opened from Harken’s sacrifice—the auraphage had keyed in on him, knowing his blood could split the veil.

  A tunnel vision of rage—Jackie tried to kill the murderous animal. It proved lightning fast and leapt to safety after she burned its hind legs with a superficial wound.

  With everyone else preoccupied, the goatman walked through the darquegate and disappeared from sight. Vyrm forces crowded the room, drawing closer to defend the Sh’logathian Herald.

  "Vivian!" Jackie screamed as she caught sight of Caivev in the battle. Splatters of Harken's blood-streaked her unmistakable face.

  Caivev sneered and leveled her hand cannon at her.

  Jackie dodged back around her cover just in time.

  You know her?” Gita asked, yelling over the loud blasts of their enemies’ weapons.

  Jackie snarled through the tears in her eyes and sorrow in her heart. “Yes—and it’s time for her to die. Cover me!”

  Gita leaned over and laid suppressive fire from a half-crouch while Jackie rolled out to the floor and took a shot from a new angle. Her first burst of shots took down the vyrm soldiers at her enemy’s sides. The next shot burned a single, smoldering hole through Caivev’s forehead.

  Caivev’s eyes crossed and then rolled back in her skull. Her body collapsed into a heap and a wisp of smoke puffed from the blackened hole through her brain.

  “Fall back!” Wulftone howled, retreating slow enough to cover the girls’ retreat. His body bore multiple wounds and burn marks from the overwhelming enemy forces. “There are too many!”

  More and more vyrm poured into the room from another side-door on the far side of the room. Their only hope was for the diversion team to punch through the main hall and come with enough force to push the enemy back so they could steal the hierophanticus and close the portal before the goatman returned.

  ***

  The Mexico City waterways were barely more than overgrown canals; the edges crept closer as they neared their wetland destination in the low parts of Xochimilco. A dread silence crept over Claire and her companions as they drew closer to the Isla de las Muñecas. The warning given by Las Siete Muertes must've been effective—not even birds dared to chirp as they drew closer.

  “My map says it’s just up here past the Island of the Dead,” Jenner scrolled through information on Claire’s smartphone as she piloted the aquatic skiff.

  She’d turned off the gasoline engine a half mile back and switched to the silent, electric trolling motor Jose must’ve had installed in order to fish the overgrown canals. Claire merely grimaced.

  “An appropriate name,” Zabe muttered under his breath.

  The only sound they made as they approached were the gentle whirs of the electric prop and the brushing of lily pads and other vegetation against the hull as Claire turned off of the main trunk and onto a smaller, reed-lined waterway which would lead directly to the haunted island. No one on the boat dared utter a sound; each one looked back and forth at each other, not caring to admit that it sounded as if childlike laughter floated on the gentle breeze.

  Ahead a crude sign had been painted on a sheet of corrugated steel. It simply read Isla de las Muñecas. “Island of the Dolls,” Claire whispered a translation to her companions as they cleared the bushy stalks.

  Trees hung over the water, each adorned with hundreds of dolls. Their haunted foliage partly obfuscated the dilapidated buildings surrounding the boat landing. Each structure leaned in various states of disrepair; strings from tree to tree tethered the creepy tourist location with a chain gang of hanging dolls weathered by the elements and blackened by the palsy which hung over the nest of evil.

  A collection of trajinera style tour boats had beached on the banks, not bothering to properly tether at the landing. Below the child-like effigies, a collection of human bodies lay in a heap at the landing. Blood leaked from the pile.

  “Las Siete Muertes,” Claire muttered.

  “Not everyone here must’ve been with the vyrm,” Zabe noted.

  Claire nodded in agreement. “Probably the boat drivers.”

  Jenner looked up from the data he scanned. “Legend says that a young girl drowned here and haunts the island. The caretaker who found her body began leaving out dolls for the spirit of the girl and continued bringing her whatever he could find. People say that…”

  Zabe pointed and Jenner followed his finger. All the dolls and severed plastic or porcelain heads had turned to watch and mark their arrival.

  Jenner swallowed the lump in his throat. “People say they do that.”

  The warriors slid off the boat as quietly as possible and Zabe shifted back into his lycan state. Using his powerful muscles he tipped the boat up until he could tip the prow below water. He waded in and fully submerged the boat below the murky depths where the muck and invasive vegetation would conceal the craft for Jose’s sake.

  He quickly returned and regrouped with his team. Shucking the bloody cloth from his celestial sword he pulled the cloak around his body to provide any additional camouflage he could get. Zabe’s ears perked up; he was sure he could hear the ethereal singsong of dolls whispering dark things to each other in a fiendish, indecipherable language.

  Claire drew closer to his side. The worried look on her face and the faces of the others meant he wasn’t the only one hearing fell voices.

  She pointed and guided them through the silent landing and old buildings. Eyes watched them from everywhere and from every angle. The damp earth silenced their footsteps, but only made the feeling they were being watched that much more agonizing.

  “I can feel a palpable wickedness,” Claire whispered to Zabe.

  Zabe listened and stretched out with his senses. Tens of thousands of dolls blanketed the trees of the overgrown island; creaking cables that tied off in every direction seemed to groan a dire welcome as the breeze pulled the strings and made severed doll limbs and disembodied parts chatter hungrily.

  “The island?”

  Claire nodded as she picked her footing through the undergrowth and moved deeper into the forest. “But more than that—I feel him… Akko Soggathoth—almost as dark as Sh’logath. I can sense him further ahead.”

  Zabe put a hand on her to halt their progress. “Can he sense you as well?”

  Claire closed her eyes and concentrated. Several moments passed as she stre
tched out with her astral senses. “I do not think so. I think those parts of me that are so deeply Bithia have been subconsciously masking our presence. Sometimes she does that… covers for my weaknesses.”

  Zabe gave her an understanding nod, then leaned down and kissed Claire on the cheek. He knew her struggles were wholly different than what any other person faced.

  She pointed ahead in the direction of the fiend and his hierophanticus. They took two steps forward and Jenner tripped on an old stump hidden amongst the bent grasses. A cloud of noisy birds leapt into the air, complaining as they fled.

  All eyes turned and locked on the youth. Jenner grimaced apologetically, feeling as disappointed in himself as anyone else.

  “I think they know we’re here, now.”

  ***

  Jackie roared and fired the last few rounds from her weapon around the edge of a colonnade where she bunkered for cover. The shrill whine followed by her string of exasperated profanity alerted the nearby vyrm that her power cells had depleted.

  She unstrapped a short sword which all Corpsmen wore. A hissing reptilian soldier jumped around the corner before she was ready and she threw her useless rifle at him, bashing his face in. The bleeding enemy recoiled and pounced as she unsheathed her blade and relieved him of both arms.

  Jackie snatched up the armless vyrm’s disruptor and a fistful of energy cells. Leaning against the pillared entry to the ceremony room she spotted the twisting, shimmering portal where the goatman had entered the Darque. To her left, allies tried to push through the last hallway to seize control of the room and seal the darquegate.

  The pitched battle raged relentless and regardless of Jackie, Gita, and Wulftone’s attempts to flank the opposition and soften them up enough to aid at all.

  “They keep coming!” Gita screamed. She pointed to the tunnel on the far side of the room where the reptilian cultists kept pouring through. “We’ve got to plug that hole!”

  Wulftone growled his assent as he raked his claws across a group of assailants. Another throng tried to gang tackle him; the suicidal maniacs pressed the giant lycan, running headlong for him just to keep him occupied.

  Gita launched herself forward, towards a closer support column. She shrieked and toppled as a disruptor blast caught her in the bicep and spun her to the ground.

  Jackie roared and darted through an open section. Blaster fire trailed after her. Skidding on her knees, she slid through Harken’s eviscerated remains.

  Slicked with the blood of her would-be lover, she hardened her heart with stone and grit. Jackie rummaged through Harken’s belongs, turning out his pocket. A grenade fell out along with a bloodstained photo of her and him taken shortly after their meeting: when they’d purged the Prime of Nitthogr’s followers.

  Jackie activated the explosive and chucked it at the far side of the room. Her accuracy had always been good; the bomb landed just inside the door where the vyrm came from.

  The temple rumbled and shook as the grenade detonated. Dust rained throughout and the tunnel which defenders came from collapsed in a heap of rubble.

  Harken’s soldiers and their fellow Corpsmen finally began inching down the tunnel without reinforcements to replace the fallen reptile warriors. They’d just begun creeping into the ceremony room when the darqueportal pulsed with bright light and then winked out.

  A cadaverous goatman looked across the room and locked gazes with the red-eyed Jackie. He screeched with hellish fury and the alien tentacle beast loped out to his side from somewhere in the darkness.

  Jackie howled with rage at the murderous fiend. Her fellow warriors had just finished beating through the alien defenses; they rushed to her side just in time to see the terrifying enemy standing defiant and successful.

  Blackness oozed off of the humanoid creature. The ethereal dark consumed the light around him like an aura of nonexistence which devoured all light and goodness around him. It uttered ancient words heard with their ears but somehow understood in their hearts. “Now you will know the power of Akko Nuggezeth!” The words threatened them with madness as much as terror.

  The inky fire flickering around Akko Nuggezeth intensified as he channeled the dark fire into the abyssal auraphage. The tentacled beast writhed and shrieked as Akko Nuggezeth visibly slumped and retreated into the shadows after imbuing the creature with power.

  Gita, back on her feet, joined Jackie’s side. They and the rest of the warriors from the Prime stared in horror as the demon shook violently and erupted in size. It twisted, seeming to turn itself inside out as it grew into a giant worm-like form. Gita shrieked and fired a few shots into the monster’s thick hide.

  It snapped its giant head-like segment towards her. It fixed Gita with its keen, eyeless senses and brayed. Toothy, tentacle-like proboscises flapped in the air as its roar blew hot wind from the jagged, human-sized maw.

  The army opened fire but the thing shrugged off the blaster fire which merely scorched and puckered the creature’s skin. It moved for Gita with quicker speed than seemed possible. The thing didn’t bother weaving through the support columns; it crashed through pylon after pylon as it pursued its prey.

  Gita turned and fled towards the safety of the troops who poured more fire into it. As it lunged for the soldiers the ceiling cracked and groaned as if the temple’s spine had broken. Overhead stones began to buckle and shift tenuously.

  With Gita in full retreat, the rest of the army followed. Their blasts remained ineffective as they charged back up the ramped tunnel. The creature’s tentacles snapped onto the entry’s colonnades and tore them free, collapsing the hall and sealing the escape route.

  An eerie silence followed once the rubble stopped falling. Wulftone gently took Jackie by the arm.

  Luckily the beast stared only at the broken exit, confused by its prey's escape. Wulftone put a finger to his lips to keep Jackie silent as they tiptoed backward slowly. His sensitive lycan ears detected more than just Akko Nuggezeth’s dread creature—the Herald remained in the room, too.

  Clapping with glee and clutching a tattered half-book, the corptic, rotting goatman staggered from the shadows followed by the tarkhūn icelord.

  Both praised the giant worm as if it were a proud dog returning from a successful hunt.

  Nearing the far wall, Jackie’s heel struck a broken shard of stone and sent it skittering across the floor. The beast, Akko Nuggezeth, and the remaining vyrm turned their heads as one.

  A tentacle rocketed out like a scorpion stinger as the monster leapt forward, guided by impulse. Wulftone snatched Jackie away just in time and darted towards the secret tunnel as fast as his legs would carry them.

  He scrambled through the small opening, pushing the bewildered Jackie up the tunnel. The giant smashed against the secret aperture. Wulftone didn’t wait to assess the situation as he clambered up the tunnel, following Sam Jones’s voice as he shouted from the mouth of the tunnel.

  Behind them, the crunching sounds of breaking stone rattled the air and set his teeth on edge as the last remaining exit crumbled. Suddenly the floor beneath them heaved momentarily and then settled as something deep within the temple collapsed—and then everything went quiet.

  Chapter 14

  Zabe directed the other two teams with hand signals, silently sending them off to flanking positions as they crept through the lush vegetation. A thick, green canopy hung high above them enclosing the jungle-like habitat on all sides.

  The other teams disappeared into the misty darkness. Dense foliage blotted out most of the sunlight and significantly cooled the Mexican midday heat.

  Even though the island was barely more than an oversized city block, finding their enemy within the slough would prove difficult. Trees grew in thick copses and made a convoluted maze filled with shifting shadows and stringers of doll parts.

  Barely functioning peekaboo eyes on decaying dolls followed their movements into the grey and green landscape. Laughter floated on the mist—as if som
e child’s disembodied spirit giggled, expecting new playmates that would dwell with it for eternity.

  Zabe laid a hand on Claire’s shoulder.

  She leaned against him. “I can sense him.” She pointed towards the heart of the wild growth. “It’s an evil like I’ve never felt before… not like Sh’logath’s raging hunger… it’s more palpable—malicious.”

  He nodded and took point, making sure he could defend her from any unexpected surprises. Zabe walked forward holding the Stone Glaive at the ready.

  The island air fell silent—too silent. More than merely muffled and stymied air trapped in a greenhouse effect: the wildlife felt the tension of Akko Soggathoth's malfeasance.

  Zabe’s crew stopped mid-step as shouts erupted from the nearby team. Gunfire rang through the trees and birds which had been hunkering down for safety sprang skyward, squawking in terror. The brush shuddered and shook as the team scattered; Zabe hoped it was defensive. He didn’t dare call out and give away their position.

  The lycan beckoned his team forward and they tiptoed around a macabre circle of trees brandishing long ruddy streaks where rusty spikes stained the limbs of crucified dolls. Ahead, and off to the side, more screams and movement as something attacked the other team. An other-worldly roar echoed through the deadened air and the bushes shook.

  Claire followed closely on Zabe’s footsteps which quickened as they hurried through the natural corridors of thorns and doll parts. Stretching out his senses he could feel a presence watching them—hungry and primal.

  Something snarled and shook the bushes behind them. Yardi screamed as some kind of beast charged from the undergrowth with lightning speed. It tore his leg off cleanly as it rushed past, sending him reeling to the ground.

  The others barely had time to react to their friend whose stump spurted blood across the path. By the time they’d turned, they only caught sight of the creature’s tentacles wrapping around Yardi’s other leg as it yanked him into the thick underbrush.