And then the ancient nightmare creature realized what I intended to do. “No! You—”
This time Lacoco walked over, put his pistol against the copy’s temple, and blew a reasonable facsimile of my brains across the twentieth floor. Lacoco spit on the corpse. “Shut up.” His lips were so mangled and the words were so slurred that they were barely understandable. The big man turned toward me, quivering with fury. One side of his face seemed shrunken without the eye. The other side was battered into split-open pulp. I was amazed he was still standing.
I looked at the pistol dangling in his hand. “That wasn’t me.”
“It was once . . .” He looked back at the body.
“Neither one of us is the man we were once, and I’m sorry for the man that I was, for what I did to you.”
Lacoco put his pistol back in the holster. “Apology accepted. You can buy me a beer when we get back to Earth.”
“Deal.” I moved my arm around from behind my back, revealing that I’d pulled my own .45, originally to shoot the copy, but had kept it hidden until Lacoco had put his own gun away. “What?” Lacoco shook his head ruefully when he saw that, but he still came up to help me limp along. “I’ve got things to do. I didn’t have time to get shot by you.”
He grunted in acknowledgement as he put my arm over his shoulders and took some of my weight. Then he said, “I gotta say, it felt awfully good to shoot you . . . the old you.”
I chuckled, then paused to listen for the gargoyles, but I couldn’t hear them. Maybe even here the Nachtmar could only pay attention to so many things at once, and there was an army of demons below. But now that the Nachtmar realized what I was up to, it would be coming for me with everything it had, which was exactly what I wanted. That would distract it from the others. There was a sudden crash and a cry from the other end of the hall. “Ed!”
We ran toward the commotion. Lacoco’s flashlight illuminated Ed with his back to us. He had a sword in each hand, one raised over his head to slash downward, one extended in front of him to ward off danger. He moved slowly, legs bent, gradually setting his weight on his toes. On the other side of him, something growled and slinked along the ground. I lifted Abomination and flicked on the big light.
Something furry was crouched on the other side of our orc. It was low and ready to pounce, but not wanting to impale itself on Ed’s sword. Bright yellow eyes were unblinking as it prepared to strike.
It was a werewolf.
I was no stranger to werewolves. I’d killed a few of them and I was absolutely terrified of the savage things. It was a werewolf that had nearly killed me and introduced me to the existence of monsters. Werewolves scared the hell out of me. The Nachtmar was getting personal now. “Out of the way, Ed!” I shouted as I searched for a clear shot. Ed leapt smoothly to the side. I pulled the trigger.
My buckshot tore a dozen holes in the ceiling. Lacoco had knocked my muzzle aside at the last second. “Hold on. I recognize her. Hey, Red! Is that you?”
It was red. I’d never seen a red one before. The werewolf tilted its head to the side, nostrils flaring as it smelled us. Ed kept his swords up. I put the monster in my sights again, but kept my finger off the trigger. Lacoco had better know what he was doing.
“It’s me, Jason. Can you hear me, Deputy?”
The werewolf stood upright and dipped its—no, her—head, seeming almost calm. I’d only been around a few fully transformed werewolves in my life, but I’d never seen anything like that before. Normally they were all fury and snapping. Edward, totally confused, even lowered his swords a bit.
The change back into a human was incredibly rapid. I’d seen fast werewolf transformations before, but never anything like this. It made Earl look sluggish. Bones popped out of now ill-fitting sockets. Fur receded. “What the hell?” Within thirty seconds there was a naked redheaded woman standing in front of us. When she lifted her head, her eyes were still glowing gold. “Damn.”
“Jason Lacoco?” She still sounded too deep.
“This is the second time I’ve seen you naked. I’m starting to think you like me or something.”
“Are you real?” she asked suspiciously, her voice already returning to a normal tone.
“Are you?” I asked her back. I wasn’t ready to believe anything here in crazy world.
The golden eyes had dimmed. “I’ve been fighting every crazy thing you can think of since we got stuck here. When I saw your little friend I thought it had started throwing ninjas at me.” She bent over and picked up some camouflage clothing from the ground and used that to cover herself. “Quit staring.”
“If it helps, I’m focusing on my sight. Not you. No offense.”
Ed, seeming satisfied that the scary werewolf lady wasn’t going to eat him, sheathed his swords and bowed. The werewolf woman gave Ed a look that suggested she didn’t trust him at all. There was a huge bloody gash in her side, but it was already knitting itself closed. It didn’t seem to be bothering her much now, but Ed had tagged her good.
“Gonna introduce us or what, Lacoco?”
“Z, this is Heather Kerkonen.”
Heather? Earl’s girlfriend? Blame it on the head injury, but I’d been too frazzled to realize who I was talking to. I’d met the red werewolf at last. “Your team went missing.”
“I’m the only one left. It’s been a long day. You’re MHI then. Yeah, you’ve got the happy-face patch.” She was suddenly hopeful. “Is Earl here?”
“He’s down in the casino. But how’d you get here?” I was still suspicious that this was another trick. I was no longer pointing Abomination at her, but I was pointing it near her.
“We tracked the Mark Thirteen after it escaped Dugway. We caught him, fought him, and next thing I knew we were wandering through a fog filled with monsters. At least until this hotel appeared out of thin air. I was checking it out when your little buddy stabbed me.”
“That’s how he says hello.” There wasn’t time to chitchat. Every second I was here the Hunters in the casino would be under siege. “We’ve got to keep going. I need to get to the roof now. I know how to beat this thing.”
“Not until I get to talk to Earl Harbinger,” she insisted, but she did pick up her backpack and follow.
The need for haste was suddenly punctuated by a loud crashing noise from behind us. The floor popped, cracked, and lifted. The Nachtmar’s gargoyles were active again.
Heather sighed. “More? Hell . . . not again.” She looked over at Lacoco. “Leave me your radio. I’ll contact Earl myself.”
I was surprised when the big man didn’t argue. Lacoco really trusted her. He unclipped his radio and passed it over. “It’s on the right channel.”
“I’ve got this. Go do what you’ve got to do.” Heather began quickly shoving the clothing back into the backpack at her feet. There were even shoes in there. I’d never heard of a werewolf with the presence of mind to keep its human things with it before. “This is such a pain.”
Werewolves were tough, but . . . “That’s a gargoyle.”
“So? Fifth one I’ve seen today. One of the guys on my team hated gargoyles. Why couldn’t Benny be terrified of My Little Ponies? No. Has to be gargoyles.”
“You’re unarmed!”
She smirked at me. “The only thing that bothers me about these things is that I can’t eat them. Even the soft monsters turn to sand after you kill them. I’m starving. I’d murder a nun for a cupcake right now . . . From Earl’s description, you must be Z, the mystical accountant. Here.” She reached into the backpack, pulled something out, and tossed it to me. I caught it with one hand. It was a set of military dog tags. “I snagged them off our target in Dugway before he blinked us all into la-la land.”
The gargoyle would be through the floor in a matter of seconds. “Good seeing you again, Deputy,” Lacoco said as he dragged me down the hall.
“You too. I’ll be in touch.” Behind us, Heather took a moment to use the radio. “This is Heather Kerkonen. Come in, Earl Harbinger.
”
“Is this some sort of trick?”
I keyed my radio. “Negative, Earl. This is Z. I think she’s legit.”
“Heather? You’re . . . alive? Is it really you?”
“Yeah, Earl. It’s me.” Her voice was choked with emotion. I’d never seen a werewolf start to tear up before. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear you again.”
“Where are you? I’ll come get you.”
I almost felt sorry for any demons that would get in Earl’s way.
“In a minute. I need to break some gargoyles first.” She placed the radio on top of the backpack, took one last look at us with her now-gleaming golden eyes, and wiped her cheek. “You’d better not screw this up.”
“I won’t.” And then Lacoco was helping me away as a massive stone gargoyle clambered into the hall to face off against the rapidly transforming werewolf. We moved away as fast as we could, which wasn’t saying much. I was wobbly and Lacoco was blowing bloody snot bubbles through his broken nose with each labored breath. Ed got the door. Back in the fire stairwell, the wall was shattered from where the gargoyles had burst in. Behind us Heather howled and there was a terrible noise as the gargoyle attacked.
Clinging mist was billowing through the hole. The alien damp tried to suck our will to live, but anger drove me on. Under the sound of the wind was the hopeful noise of our helicopter, our ticket home. We were almost there. The door to the roof was open. Julie was waiting for us, standing like a dark blot in front of the angry static of the storm, hair whipping loose behind her. “Owen! How bad are you hurt?”
“It’s not my blood. Mostly.”
A foreign Hunter I didn’t recognize grabbed onto my arm and took me from Lacoco. From the way he appraised me, I probably looked worse than I felt. “You both need medical attention.”
“No time. Get to the chopper.”
“Do it,” Julie ordered him.
“How many men do you have up here?”
“Counting you guys, eight.”
That would be a very tight fit. “Load them up.” Julie shouted for the others and waved them toward the Hind. Ed helped me up the stairs to the landing pad, and a few seconds later I was climbing inside the Hind. It appeared that Skippy was ready to go. Julie got in behind me. “What’s your plan?” she shouted, trying to be heard over the rotors. I mostly read her lips.
I pulled down a headset from the overhead rack and pulled it on. “Skippy, as soon as everyone is loaded, get us in the air.”
“Go where?” Skippy asked.
“Pick a direction and run, fast as you can.” Gargoyles were capable of surprising speed, but they would be no match for Skippy. Though driving in a helicopter through a magical hurricane was probably stupid, Sam said we could fly right out of here. Being dead didn’t make you infallible, so I sure hoped he was right or we were totally screwed.
Edward climbed in next, and then extended his hand to help in a slight figure. I realized it was Tanya the elf, but before Julie or I could say anything, Ed looked at us and put his finger over his face mask to indicate silence. If his brother realized that there was an elf on his chopper there would be absolute hell to pay. We couldn’t leave any of our people up here to die, but I wasn’t sure if Skippy would agree that elves counted as people, and there was no time to argue about it.
Julie’s snipers were moving back from the edges. John VanZant came running up, carrying a Barrett M-82 that was nearly as big as he was. Lacoco was being helped along by the stranger. They were almost to the chopper when there was a flash of red lightning. The running Hunters were swept off their feet. The Hind rocked and swayed on its tires, our spinning rotors dipping wildly toward the ground.
“Look!” Julie pointed out the door.
Gargoyles were swarming over the side of the roof, their blank stone eyes focusing on the Hind. There was a flash of purple lightning, the sky broke open, and shadows flashed above as dozens of beating wings filled the sky. The gargoyles had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. They were circling, preparing to dive-bomb their stone bodies against our only escape.
The hotel rocked under another tremendous assault, which bounced our chopper, sending it turning sideways. It felt like the hotel was going to collapse. Skippy shouted something that had to be orcish profanity. The other Hunters were knocked off their feet and sent jittering wildly across the shaking roof. Lacoco realized that he was coming dangerously close to our dipping rotor and scrambled away on his hands and knees.
A gargoyle fell out of the sky. It didn’t even spread its wings before hitting the roof hard enough to make a crater. The unfamiliar Hunter disappeared, smashed beneath the creature. It had only missed our rotor because of the wild bouncing of the building.
The gargoyle was between us and Lacoco. More were crashing into the roof all around us. One hit and we were done.
The other Hunters weren’t going to make it.
Julie began unstrapping herself. She was going after them.
If we fail here, everyone dies.
“Stone birds! Stone birds!” Skippy bellowed. “Must go!” A gargoyle hit on the other side and the shrapnel cracked the window.
It would be a lie to say that my decision was hard or easy. Those concepts imply having the luxury of time enough to think it through. It just was what it was. We couldn’t risk hundreds of lives for two. I reached out and grabbed Julie’s hand before she could finish unbuckling herself. She tugged against my bloody hand until she realized what I was doing. I made the call. “Skippy! Get us in the air!” I shouted.
“No! Those Hunters—” Julie was stunned.
“Fly, Skippy, now!”
Skippy complied. The Hind rolled forward on the landing pad.
VanZant had managed to maneuver his gigantic sniper rifle around in the prone position and began firing the .50 at the gargoyle embedded in the roof, splattering molten rock with each massive impact. Lacoco staggered to his feet. Understanding registered on his battered face that he wasn’t going to reach us in time, and then we were moving up and forward and I lost sight of him through the door.
Julie was staring at me, eyes filled with disbelief. The Nachtmar is after me, I told myself, trying to not make it any more painful than it already was. He’ll concentrate on me. They can fall back. It’ll concentrate on me. If we fail here, everyone dies. I repeated it like a mantra.
“Hold on to something!” Skippy roared. The Hind nearly turned on its side as we left the hotel. Loose items rolled free. Tanya hadn’t gotten strapped in yet, but one of Edward’s hands flew out with lightning speed and snagged her by the shirt. Ed pulled her in and wrapped one arm around her to keep her in place.
A black shape streaked past our open door. Wings tucked in and falling like a bomb, the gargoyle had missed our rotor by mere inches. It slammed into the edge of the hotel, obliterating twenty feet of it, and hurtling over the edge. It would’ve gotten us if we’d stayed any longer. The entire world shifted as Skippy turned us the other way. Another gargoyle screamed past. Sparks flew as something nicked our chopper’s side. Then I didn’t know which way was up, as the view through the door was gray nightmare fog, then ground, then fog again. The chopper shook as something clipped us toward the rear. A warning buzzer sounded and a red light began to flash in the interior.
But then we were upright again, the hotel was behind us, and we were hurtling into the unknown. We’d made it through the hail of gargoyles. “Frolugsh!” Skippy exclaimed. “Stone bird hit! Not tail row-tor again. Not good. Not good.” I tugged the door closed. The angry red warning light was still flashing. I couldn’t read Cyrillic but I was pretty sure that one said something about Kiss Your Ass Goodbye. Smoke was pouring into the cabin.
“Keep going straight, Skippy,” I said. We could crash, just please let us get out of this world first. Looking around, Edward seemed calm as usual, Tanya was utterly terrified, especially since the only thing that had kept her from flying out the door had been Ed’s reflexes, but Ed hadn’t let go of her yet
.
When I glanced at my wife, she was giving me the angriest, most hurt expression that I’d ever seen from her. Who could blame her? I hated myself too. “I had no choice.”
“You always have a choice!” Julie got on her radio. “John? Jason? Come in John? VanZant, Lacoco, can you hear me? Damn it . . . Get inside, fall back, find cover. John?”
“I’m sorry.” It was too much for her. Julie hit me. We were sitting too close for her to get much energy into it, but she tried. She hit me again. I let her. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“I’ve heard that before! They’re going to die. You abandoned them!”
Yes, I had. Hanging onto a metal ladder in a hot engine room with a vampire below me and a hatch slammed shut in my face. I knew exactly how it felt. “If we don’t make it out, then every single mortal trapped in this realm is as good as dead. I have to get back to the real world.” It was a new feeling, seeing such anger directed at me from my wife. It hurt a lot worse than my physical injuries. “You’ve got to trust—”
“Shut up.” Julie held up a hand. “I’ve got something on the radio. John? Are you okay?”
I picked it up in my headset. The voice of the Nachtmar was deep, thick, hoarse, and every bit as chilling as his physical presence. “You will not escape me that easily, Chosen . . . For I know what you are now. I can see the chains of destiny you wear. I will take your chains. I will taste your fear and I will grow strong. My essence lingers upon you. There is no escape for you.”
If he concentrated his energies on me, then he wouldn’t be able to expend them against the other Hunters. “Come and get me, alp.”
“A word. There are many words. That is the wrong word.” The Nachtmar hissed. “Your learned humans were fools. They believed I am less than I am. They did not capture me as they captured my children. They did not take me from this place. I allowed them to take me from this place. They did not use me. I used them. I am king here. I have been and always will be. They did not give me thought. I have tasted the fear of Chosen before. I took their words and made them mine. I took their words and told new stories. When dogs feasted upon the bodies in the streets of Bactria, I was there. The harvesters of flesh allowed me to harvest their dreams. I am and always will be. This is my finest vessel yet, and I will not allow you to take him from me until the superior vessel is ripe.”