Aftermath (17 page)

“What’s the going rate for it these days?” I grinned. “Seems your bosses are on the warpath and ready to screw a bunch of new holes in you. Don’t you think they’d be way more accommodating if you were able to claim you stopped an ancient deity from pulling a Godzilla on all mankind? Sounds like a promotion worthy deed to me.” Not that I wanted to see Shaw gain any more power than she already had but I figured it was likely she’d catch a bullet at some point during the mission anyway, even if I had to do it myself. “What do you say, Shaw? You down with the OPP?” Other People’s Prisons.

She swallowed hard but I could see she was caving, though that was more likely due to her picturing killing me the same way I was imagining taking her out. We both had the same smile on our faces.

“Fine,” she said, not bothering to say more.

“Then we’re off to see the lizards.”

Everyone just stared at me.

It was times like these where I wish Chatterbox were with me. He’d get my jokes.

“If I have to explain it to you, people…” I stalked over and grabbed a ballistic vest and slipped it on, tightening the Velcro straps loud in the silence. Everyone else followed my lead and gathered their gear. Looking over the final result was like watching an episode of the
Geriatric Squad
with special guests
the Munsters
. We were going to war with a bunch of freaks but at least we were well armed. That had to account for something.

Didn’t it?

Chapter Fifteen

The smoke swirled around us as we slithered into the interstice. I’d thought ahead to have Shaw bring some rope so the huge difference in the height of the ground between Earth and the prison realm didn’t end up being our first and last challenge.

First one down, I made the mistake of looking at the soul devourer. Another shudder ran through me. The bullet holes were a nice touch but nothing would make those guys less disturbing to me. Not even it being dead. So instead of continuing to creep myself out I shifted my attention over to the rifle and the severed arm.

The arm was pretty non-definitive, not markings or distinctive coloring. There was no telling who it had come from, especially since there was no body nearby. The rifle was a hunting type. It would hurt like hell to get shot with it but it wasn’t remotely in the league of the weapons we’d brought along. Still, it pointed to masked boy and his people being armed. Once we caught up to them it would be a clusterfuck of crossfire.

Once we were all gathered in the forest it was a done deal. Rala closed the gateway behind us and we pushed forward a little ways to avoid the onslaught of dragons whose job it was to defend the prison from folks trying to escape through the dimensional wall. We hunkered down and waited. Then we waited a little more.

“Seems the Draconian Air Force is out of commission.”

“Wonder if that’s because of our
friends
,” Rahim mused.

“Well, seeing how the dragons respawn if you kill them I suspect there’s something bigger going on. Probably the same thing that’s keeping the guardians between the worlds busy.”

“So the prison is broken?” Rachelle asked. “What’s to keep all the other prisoners inside?”

“When you put it like that…” Nothing.

I groaned. She was right. If the dragons and the guardians were out of commission, the only thing keeping the place intact was the need for a cipher to key the doors. And quite conveniently, I just happened to have brought one with us.

“Shit,” I muttered. “That might just be part of masked boy’s plan. If he frees the entire realm, how loyal to him do you think those folks would be?”

“Far more loyal than they would be to humanity, I would presume,” Lance answered.

“How many more gods are locked up in here?” Grace asked.

None of us knew the answer so I ad-libbed to make them feel better. “Probably a fuck-ton.”

Shaw rolled her eyes. “Damn it, Trigg. I should have known better than to follow you here.”

Rahim nodded. “You really should have.”

“Okay, okay. Maybe I didn’t think this through all the way.” Everyone turned to glare at me. “Or at all, but just because the stakes have been raised doesn’t mean we’re off the hook. We still have a job to do.” I could see I wasn’t winning them over any.

Rachelle waved smoke from her face and coughed for attention, all polite and ladylike. “We’re here so let us stop bickering.” She gestured to the smoldering trees. “I think our first priority is to determine which way our opponents have gone before we die of smoke inhalation.”

I glanced at Rala. “Time for some aerial reconnaissance, kid. Wonder Twin powers activate.” I held my fist out to her. “Form of, a wyvern.”

She just stared at me, leaving me hanging. After a minute she shuffled off behind a tree where we couldn’t see her transform.

“Such leadership skills,” Shaw said with a grin. Her people chuckled behind her.

“And yet all you morons followed me here.”

That seemed to silence the hecklers.

It was either that or Rala’s shift into a dragon that did it.

She loosed a gurgled roar as the change came over her, wings jutting out from behind the cover of the tree, stretching toward the sky. The first thing I noticed is how long they were. While her wyvern form had been good sized to begin with, it was clear it had matured right alongside the rest of her. She’d gone from Littlest Pet Shop to Smaug in the span of a few months. It was damn impressive.

Rala stomped out from behind the tree, revealing the results of her transformation. Reddened eyes crackled with a fiery glower, her nose sloping down to a fearsome maw of sharpened daggers. Her long, thick neck led down to her wings, which were peeled back and pulled in tight against her ribs, splendid with orange and black stripes. She hissed at me as she hunkered into a crouch, and then she was airborne, shooting through the canopy, her serrated tail squirming out of sight. Leaves and branches rained down around us in her wake.

“I’ll never get used to that,” Rachelle said to no one in particular.

“What are you hoping she’ll find?” Shaw asked.

“If we’re lucky it will be a great big sign saying, ‘We’re right here! Come kill us.’ Barring that, maybe she can track the flames. Seems Mister Fire Giant is a bit of a fire bug.”

“So I see you’ve worked this out to the smallest detail. Such organization.”

“You can micromanage from the backseat if it makes you happy. I hear you do your best work there.”

“Can’t we all just get along?” Grace asked, shaking her head. “If this keeps on I’m going to opt for the world ending so both of you will just shut the hell up.”

Shaw glared and Grace looked away, but there was no hiding the glimmer of a smile on her lips. She didn’t like Shaw any more than we did. She was just stuck with her for some reason. One day I’d have to pry and figure that reason out. It might give me some leverage against the pasty overlord.

We hung out in silence after that, all of us keeping an eye out on the surrounding trees, guns at the ready. There was no telling what time it was in the strange world and nightfall brought with it a legion of crazy and dangerous monsters. With no guide to show us the secret hidey-holes to keep us out of trouble, we were stuck fighting our way through. Even prepared as we were it was a daunting proposition.

Rala’s return distracted me from those thoughts. She winged through the treetops and returned to her starting point, landing with a
whump
. After positioning herself so the bulk of her transformation would go unseen—she’d gotten shy since the last time too—she began the process of returning to her normal form. Once the great wings shriveled and disappeared behind the trunk there was some quiet shuffling, and then she slipped back into sight, fully dressed once more. There wasn’t even a hint of unsteadiness in her gait so either she’d gotten better at managing the shift or better at hiding its impact.

“What did you find?” Rahim asked her as soon as she returned to our side.

“Apparently they aren’t burning things just to be destructive,” she answered. “There’s this scorched area and two others off in the distance.” Rala pointed in their general direction in turn. “All three form a pretty clear triangle from above.”

“They’re marking off a search zone,” both Rahim and Rachelle said at the same time, sharing slight smiles at each other.

“Awwwwww.” Shaw made a cute face for an instant before her usual bitch mask returned. “Now can we get on with it?”

“Where’s the center point?” I asked, ignoring her for once.

To my surprise Rala answered without hesitation
or
snark. “It’s that way, though I couldn’t see anything. The trees cover the entire area and don’t leave any room for peeking at the ground.”

“Guess we do this the hard way then.” I pulled a pistol loose and let it dangle in my hand and started off in the direction Rala had pointed. The others followed after me.

With the exception of the acrid tang in the air and the crackle of dying flames, the place was just like we’d left it. The purple-green leaves were brilliant in the gloom, every flutter a distraction that had my head on a swivel. The deep blue of the tree trunks brought back interesting memories of the days we’d spent there.

“Check the trunks for secret hideaways just in case we need one,” I told everyone, continuing on ahead, .45 at the ready. Those who’d been through this the last time would know what I was talking about. Those who hadn’t would learn soon enough.

We walked on until the char fell away and the natural scent of the alien jungle took hold. It was fragrant, to put it nicely. Do bull-bears shit in the woods? The answer was a definitive
yes
. My boots
squished
with every step and I did my best to pretend it was just the monsoon season that had soaked the soil and nothing else. I wasn’t fooling myself. Rather than concentrate on the goop collecting on my soles I pushed on faster, looking for a distraction. Not long after I found one.

A loud pop sounded in the distance, the sound echoing through the woods.

“Was that…?” Thud started to ask.

“Gunshot,” Kit confirmed, a dozen guns clacking in response to her statement.

I should have known she’d be the one to identify it, little weapons freak that she was. Lance didn’t dignify the sound by even bothering to reach for his sword.

“Seems we’re headed the right direction.” I pushed on, a little more wary, but no slower. Masked boy had a head start on us and the gunshot was the closest thing we had to determine just how far ahead they were. Judging by the sound it wasn’t much.

We marched on and heard a second shot a few minutes later, followed by a third.

“What the hell are they shooting at?” Grace asked.

I was about to answer that it could be anything but I suddenly had a very clear idea what it was.

“Uh, them,” I said, pointing out the herd of critters stomping our way through the underbrush.

A cross between a sloth and wolverine, dozens of the things charged at us. Open, slathering mouths were filled with jagged shards of teeth, all gleaming with foamy spittle. Yellow eyes looked like the headlights of rush hour traffic bearing down on us, six-inch claws tearing at the moist humus in a desperate rush to get to us.

“Up the trees,” Lance ordered while stepping into the path of the creatures. His sword came loose of its sheath with a scrape and a blur of motion, silvered runes gleaming just above the cross guard. “No shooting unless necessary.”

I stepped up behind him, making sure he had plenty of room to swing his sword without taking my head off, and made ready to face the horde of wolver-sloths. While I understood why he didn’t want any gunplay, keeping our presence a secret—I couldn’t see some of our folks climbing trees, most particularly Rachelle.

Father Lance met the first of the creatures with a sweeping blow that caught three of them in their gaping mouths. Blood and froth filled the air, copper and funk fighting for attention. The three wolver-sloths stumbled; their skulls split nearly in half, and skidded to a halt, bodies flopping at his feet.

I did my best to imitate Lance, pistol-whipping the one closest to me. There was a meaty
thwack
, two ham hocks colliding, and the creature reeled back and fell on its ass. Before it could recover I booted it into its friends and knocked a few more of them about like howling bowling pins. Of course Lance killed a couple more before mine had even settled.

Thud ran up behind us and punted one of the creatures as though it were a football. I did my best not to giggle as it went flying up through the canopy and broke through a good thirty yards distant, crashing to earth out of sight. The rest of the creatures seemed to take the hint and scattered, fleeing in different directions into the trees, yips and howls accompanying the retreat of their furry assholes. After a few minutes the silence returned.

“That’s how you do it,” Thud said, his chest puffed out so far I was afraid he might explode if he bumped something sharp. Still, rather than give him shit about his attitude, I offered up a grudging. He’d done well for a Hobbit but I wasn’t gonna make a big deal out it. Besides, I was more interested in something else.

“Is that…?” I started to ask, gesturing to Father Lance’s sword.

He smiled and snapped his wrist, all the blood on the blade leaping free to patter against a nearby tree, leaving the sword gleaming. With a casual twist he slid it back inside the plain sheath at his hip. “Not every sword is Excalibur, Frank,” he said, glancing about conspiratorially. “But yeah, this one is.”

“Does the Lady of the Lake know you have it?”

“Who do you think gave it to me?” Lance grinned and started off once more.

“Name dropper,” I muttered as I followed behind. Some people just have no shame.

We went on for another half hour without running into more of the world’s local fauna or any of the bad guys. Both were a welcome respite though it did make me wonder if we’d fallen too far behind to catch up to them. Then I had an idea.

“Hey, Poe. Do your mind tricks work in this place?”

“I’ve been hesitant to reach out. While we’re fairly certain those we pursue are not able to converse telepathically, or they would not have kidnapped myself or Mister Li, it is still possible that entities as powerful as Abaddon or the giant might be able to sense my attempt at scanning them, however unintentional,” he said. “My senses are active, though feeling a bit dampened. Regardless, I remain receptive should Mister Li reach out.”