The Forsaken - The Apocalypse Trilogy: Book Two (54 page)

Conan had butterflies and sour-gut that they
had pushed their luck enough already. Too much time had passed.

He blurred by many more straggling kids and
gave them the same encouragement and directions
point-point-air-stab
before running past them into the
shadows. When he came upon a group of children that were running
with panic-eyes and prickle-hair, Conan felt a thrill of
battle-scorch burn through him. There was trouble for sure. Lots of
it.
Yum-cut-gulp
! By the looks of terror on the rocket-run
forever children, something really bad had happened. He hoped he
wasn’t too late.

Conan grabbed the arm of one little boy who
right-away started squeaking and dancing in the fighter’s grip.

“Let me go! Let me go!” the boy shrieked now
pushing at Conan’s mask. “The Principal’s here!”

Conan let him go, and started sprinting the
way the kids were coming. Ahead, the forever boy could see a minor
change in eye-gleam. It was slightly brighter that way, and there
was a reddish glimmer-stain to the walls and floors. A thrill for
battle and quiver of yikes struggled in the boy’s breast as he ran
ahead, imagining Toffers and Sheps in lethal claw and rip with Mr.
Jay. His nimble feet crossed the distance in seconds. Then Conan
slowed.

The doors to the Dormitory had been broken
and battered from their hinges—tossed up and scattered like
Popsicle sticks. The spooky red light from within showed the bodies
of two forever kids crumpled and bent into bug shapes. Conan
instinctively slipped under shadow and peered into the room,
snuffling the thick air for friends.

A man stood opposite Mr. Jay in the center of
the room. The stranger was much taller than the magician, perhaps
two feet or more, and held no weapons. At least, Conan could see
nothing dangerous or sharp about the man. He had an old book
clamped in one large hand but that was nothing to squeak about.

Then the little fighter noticed that all the
beds and furniture had been swept aside and smashed into the walls.
It rested in broken piles of junk and splinter all around the
gigantic circle-room. Conan slunk into the shadows and angles of
the mess and looked for a place he could get a good peek or where
he could help with a stick and twist if it came to that.

“
Your
time is at an end,” said the
man. “Your kind must learn this.” He chuckled, his eyes focused
under wrinkled eyebrows.

“Save your games, Dantalion,” growled Mr.
Jay, pressing one hand to his head and wincing. His metal stick was
growing white with power. “This has never been
our
world.”

“But it is mine
now
!” The man bellowed
and charged toward Mr. Jay. With each stride he moved farther away
from his human skin-shape. Clothes fell away and were replaced with
burning muscle and rank fur; the hands became claws, the feet
hooves, and the face tipped toward drooling-fang-faced-demon. Its
fists grew red with heat, and flames trailed from them like
fireworks.
Ooh
!
Aah
!

Mr. Jay held his metal stick high, pointed
slightly toward the now-monster-man. Then just as the thing was
about to bite and claw and snatch, the magician shouted a word. And
the monster froze in the air, its arms and legs and body a blur of
stopped time. Flame and sparks still curled off its fists and
blazed out of its eyes but it was locked in place.

It glared down at the magician through slit
pupils.

Mr. Jay walked up to it. His movements were
tired and almost old; Conan’s brain whirred doing all the
not-yakking suddenly. The magician stood a few steps in front of
the monster; his stick was just a cold piece of metal in his
hands.

“My time is ending,” he said, like he was
talking to any old body. “I’m looking forward to it.” His words
were calm. “But it isn’t over yet.”

And he lifted an open hand and struck the air
in front of the frozen monster with it. There was a blinding flash
and the floor shook. Conan’s dazzled eyes saw seven strokes of
lightning burst out of the air and rip into the body of the beast
and it was gone. A ghost of smoke hung in the dark.

The magician knelt down, studying the
enormous cracks his lightning had broken into the floor. He waved
at a last drifting cloud of smoke.

Conan was cross-fingered ready to step out of
hiding when the lights in the room flickered, once, twice and
dimmed.

A mist began to form around the room along
wall, even drape-hanging across the space where Conan hid. It was
close enough to give him a chill like dew-drop-rain. And as he
watched it this mist thickened—spooks and ghosts, and grew heavy
and soon made dark shapes of at least a hundred. Tall and massive
and muscular, Conan recognized the upright bodies and strange black
hats of the Toffers. And mixed in with them the glowing
flame-licked spheres, the Sheps, monster beach balls full of
teeth—all without their man-skins.

And there was a blinding flash, and screaming
like sirens they rushed in at the magician and knocked him down.
Conan heard the thunderous impacts of a hundred bodies smashing
into the magician and shattering the floor. Roiling flames licked
up from the Sheps as they heated the air like sun-fire and
bomb-blast. It lit the Toffers and filled the room with
devil-light.

And there were the sounds of breaking rocks
and crushing bones. The floor shook under Conan’s feet, and for an
eye-blink a cold rush of fear filled the boy. And the floor shook
again. There was a wail of agony—a man’s cry and another blast of
power shook the room. But still the Toffers poured their dark
strength and flame into the magician.

And Conan could stand no more of it. He
flicked out of his hiding place, kill-flower flashing. The boy
sprinted into the forest of muscular legs and roil and started
slashing.

Heat prickled his skin as he moved and weird
energy snapped and popped in the air—flickered on his helmet and
danced over his blades. His hair stood on end and started to
smoke.

The heat grew more and more and almost
plucked the breath from his little lungs but he fought on.
Swing-dodge-cut-jump
! His anger blinded him to his fear and
pain. The Toffers’ towering legs and stamping feet moved around
him, some shifting to man-skin, others monstrous, pushing forward,
clawing at the tiles for grip and blood.

But Conan danced among them, smiling-blind to
danger. The Toffers and Sheps moved quickly but none fast enough to
catch the little Nightcare fighter who was a sharp whirling weapon
of murder and death. As they turned, he slashed. As they leapt
back, he jabbed. And as their numbers merged they could not move
away from his cuts and rips. No sooner would he slash a crotch than
he would hamstring a twisted leg, then he moved in close to open up
a belly. The blades of the die-flower were singing and streaming
ribbons of blood. And Conan smiled and smiled like Christmas.

He kept slashing and jabbing and cutting all
the while dancing a step ahead of the defense. All the while his
breath coming in hot gasps on the sulfurous wind that blew around
the beasts. His body was running with sweat as he blood-stroked a
deadly storm upon the monsters.

And then a misstep, a second hesitation and a
giant foot came down on Conan’s ankle. Pain blinded him as he
tumbled on the tiles. Still stabbing he rolled, the murder blade
flickering. He leapt and cut, wove and stabbed as the beasts began
to seek him out with their teeth. Smelling his sudden weakness they
desired a kill.

And another searing pain flashed up his spine
as a twisting claw found a mark and tore his armor open up the
back. The momentum pushed him down and sent him flying. He
staggered, fell to his knees and only got his kill-flower up in
time to fend off a yellow-clawed hand.

The air grew hotter—the hair on his head was
burning. Talons grabbed his arms and swung him, another set of
claws grabbed at his legs and started pulling. Conan’s body
stretched and wrenched with pain. His spine burned.

And then he heard a man shout and he was
flung to the floor. So loud was the sound that it hurt his ears and
caused the walls around the battle to buckle and crack with deep
boulder sounds. There was a horrible animal scream in return and
the monsters charged in toward the center where a white flame had
suddenly appeared. A circular blasting ring of white fire and power
rippled its way outward, tearing the Toffers and Sheps to pieces
when it touched them. And a great bellowing rang out, as the
killing began. Conan rolled into shadow, his body numb as he
watched the creatures run wild in madness—trample each other as
they were devoured by flame.

And as the fire approached, Conan wondered if
it would hurt when it killed him.

77 – Parley

The Prime felt the concussion through his
chair. His visitor sat blankly unaware or was too nervous to
notice, but definitely; the Prime had just felt the whole Tower
shake. It shook from time to time—there were vibrations. It was
connected to the City on several levels and all those millions of
cars and thousands of miles of Skyway could cause a ripple effect.
The hurricane winds of Killing rains caused it to sway and shudder
when they came in late summer and fall. But the Prime had never
felt something like he’d just experienced.

It was unlikely the work of terrorists and
Updike’s forces were too far away to work any treachery ahead of
the coming battle. The City was in a state of high-security and
Archangel Tower had been in lockdown for days. Powers were loose
but he went to considerable effort and expense to have allies and
soldiers and functionaries for security around things like that.
The Prime warned himself about such micromanaging blinding him to
the big picture. He would be alerted if his attention were
required.

At the moment, he was having fun.

The dead traitor’s lungs labored. His ribcage
heaved. The corpse was behaving like he truly needed air and his
discomfort couldn’t have made the Prime happier. Stoneworthy had
spent the first few minutes after his arrival looking around the
Prime’s office. He reached out with gray fingers to stroke the
wall, then a windowsill, as though the architecture was the body of
a long lost lover. The minister closed his eyes, and dipped his
chin in silent prayer before taking a chair opposite the Prime’s.
The dead man’s chest continued to convulse.

“Are you quite all right?” The Prime hoped he
wasn’t
quite. Stoneworthy and the grave robber Updike had
caused him nothing but trouble over the last forty-eight hours:
loss of life, equipment and the bottom line, dollars, lots of
dollars spent on public relations and advertising to convince the
City’s populace that fighting the army of the walking dead was
their only option. All while he could have just…

Little did the bastards know that for the
last twenty-four hours they were one order away from nuclear
annihilation. The Prime had decided against it in the end. Two
things: his Final Solution was ready. On his word everything for
fifty square miles around the city would burn; and he knew it was
just a matter of time before the Powers got involved. Nuking the
southern zombie force was enough of a demonstration of his
commitment—
that
was for competing Prime’s overseas.
Look
what I can do
. But that was war; that was foreign affairs.

His Final Solution was in place if he ran out
of options. If he were losing the coming battle, he’d scorch the
earth. And that would only work if the Angelic and Demonic hordes
were in range when the rockets flew. He wouldn’t waste more nukes
on zombies alone.
Perish the thought
. His Final Solution
ended all the games. And, he’d pop up some fifty miles away with
food, money and an all-girl crew.

He looked back to Stoneworthy, who continued
to struggle. Typically, it would be better to force the minister to
open the discussion—he was the traitor begging forgiveness after
all—but the Prime was pressed for time. He had a civil war to win
and an international war to start.

The minister blinked—wiped a cold hand
against his brow.

“I’m sorry.” Stoneworthy’s voice had grown
hollow in death. “I had at times determined that my new state was a
curse. But I see, it has given me one last opportunity to see—to
touch a project that so shaped the life I lived.” He looked over at
the Prime. “Please forgive me.”

The leader of Westprime was shocked to see a
tear on the dead man’s cheek.
I’ll give you something to cry
about
.

“Of course, Reverend Stoneworthy, you have
every right to be proud. Archangel Tower not only represents one of
the greatest architectural feats in human history, it has come to
be a beacon of hope for people the world over.”

“And so it is. So it has become.” The dead
minister glanced at the Prime, and then locked stares with him.
“And so you can understand how terrible it would be to see it
destroyed in needless conflict.”

The Prime masked his dismay at this pointed
turn of conversation. So the zombie had more on the ball than he
was letting on.
Okay, Jelly Bean…you want to get tough
? The
leader of Westprime had perhaps incorrectly written the man off as
an absentminded theologian. Gawky. Blushing at girls. True, the man
had built the Tower, but he had lots of help. It was possible his
strength was in talking a good talk—he was a preacher. Now he was
showing off his mental dexterity. The Prime had met thousands like
him over the years, and buried hundreds. And the Prime was no
slouch when it came to talking either.

“Agreed,” the Prime announced. He had long
ago realized the power of agreement. “And this is exactly why I
cannot understand your actions, Reverend Stoneworthy. You disappear
under strange circumstances then reappear later—dead and in the
presence of the rebel Updike, making incredible demands of Mayor
Barnstable and the good people of this city. Frankly, posing the
greatest threat that
your
Tower has ever faced.” The Prime
paused, he had to work up the strength to say: “Redistribute
wealth?” He resisted the urge to pound the table. Instead, he
traced its edge. “Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”