The devil's Pact - S01 E427

Story 11 hours ago

The devil's Pact - S01 E427

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 427

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Noel Heinrich

The portal sprang to life as Ben and Jarvis finished drawing their circle, the gray mists of the Shadows pressing against the portal's plane like smoke against a glass window. Ben and Jarvis climbed down their ladders; the portal had to be carved large enough for the golems to fit. Nodding in satisfaction, I turned to survey the field of golems, all roughly shaped from the red clay we had dug out of a nearby hill. Each was hulking, standing ten feet tall, and broad shouldered, but only had the vaguest resemblance to a human, like they were merely cut-outs in the shape of a human without any of the fine details: eyes, nose, muscle definition, hair, lips, bellybutton. They stood motionless, waiting for a Warlock to activate them. We had a hundred and thirty. Ten for each of us.

I took a deep breath, and yelled the golem's activation order, “Met!”

The first ten shook and came to life. Wyatt shouted the order, then Jarvis, Ben, Gus, Marrisa, and the rest. Row after row of the hulks came to life, their bodies creaking as they began to move. Hebrew letters appeared on their foreheads, blazing scarlet. They spelled a single word—death. They would reek havoc in the church, killing anyone who got between them and their target. They would not stop, they would not tire, they would only kill. Even if we were struck down, they would keep killing. And Mark, wanting to prove how great and mighty he was, would throw himself into the fray. I smiled; he'd be overwhelmed.

Drawing Annihilation, I stepped through the portal. With booming footsteps, the ten golems under my command followed me through the portal. I peered around the mists, keeping a wary eye for Mark's ghosts. I didn't see any. But you couldn't see far through the fog. I glanced behind me, watching my golems stump through the portal. Wyatt and the other Patriots waited for their turn, standing in a group by the portal.

They all looked uncomfortable, nervous, talking to each other or smoking a cigarette. Arms folded, tension in their eyes. And guilt. Wyatt looked at the ground, his shoulders slumped. None of them liked my plan, but we had run out of options. Mark was too powerful, and we were being hunted down like dogs. There was—

Fire engulfed my compatriots. Red and orange erupted in the blink of an eye, boiling with fury. A rapidly expanding cloud of flames and smoke consumed them, then ripped through the ranks of the golems like a combine through a wheat field, battering their bodies into chunks of red clay. Then the shock wave slammed into me.

The fog spun about me as I was thrown by the force of the explosion; Annihilation flew from my hand. I tumbled through gray mist, struggling to comprehend what had happened as I was tossed like a piece of debris in a hurricane. I landed on my arm; there was a sickening crunch, and pain roared through me. I rolled across the ground, and came to a rest next to the black blade. It had landed point down, sunk to the hilt into the gray rocks.

What just happened?

I lay dazed, my ears ringing. My thoughts were scattered, and my mind groggy. The image of Wyatt and the other Patriots waiting for their turn to enter was burned into my mind. They had been standing together talking or smoking a cigarette, waiting for their turn to lead their golems through the portal, when—my thoughts froze.

They were all dead: Davin, Jarvis, Marrisa, Nyree, Kilie, Ben, Alec, Gus. I was the last one left.

I felt numb—too stunned for grief. Mark had found us, and sent some sort of air strike. I should be dead, too. I had barely entered the Shadows when it happened. My body shook; I missed death by mere seconds. The weight of what just happened fell on me, crushing my soul. I was the only one left.

It fell on me to save the world. That weight almost crushed me.

“I'll see you dead, Mark!” I screamed into the shadows. “You'll pay for every innocent life you destroyed!”

I sat up, trying to ignore the pain of my broken left arm. I glanced once at it, and almost threw up. It was twisted; a splinter of white bone jutted bloody out the side. I grasped Annihilation with my good arm, and struggled to my feet. Surrounding me stood my golems, patiently waiting for their orders. Two were destroyed in the blast, and another had lost an arm.

I was the last Patriot! I would see Mark Glassner dead even if it cost me my life! Gritting my teeth, I led my golems through the mists.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alison de la Fuente

The hellfire missile struck at the center of the mass of Warlocks, consuming them in red flames and black smoke. The shock wave was so powerful I could see it rippling through the air, collapsing the side of a barn, blowing out the windows of the ranch house, and blasting the animated statues into huge chunks of red clay, which flew in every direction and crashed down across the Montana countryside.

The second missile was overkill, striking just feet from the first and collapsing the rest of the barn. A few seconds later, the booms slammed into our position on the knoll. The shock wave struck me, and I felt like I had just jumped face first into a pool of water. My hair whipped about my head, and my ears protested the sudden pressure change. The Patriot's three sentries only had to time to gape at the missiles' devastation before they fell dead to our snipers' fire.

“Good kill,” Sergeant Holland radioed to the drone operators back in Langley, Virginia.

“Maybe one got away,” Desiree mused as she scanned the wreckage with her auraculars. “That blonde woman was through the portal when the missiles struck. I don't know if explosions can pass through a portal or not.”

“Um, are those statues still moving?” I asked. Maybe twenty of them, the ones farthest from the portal, were still standing. It looked like they were turning around, walking towards us with a slow, unstoppable gait. “I think they're coming for us.”

“Send another missile down,” Desiree ordered. “Wipe them out.”

“The drone only carried two Hellfire missiles,” Sergeant Holland answered.

The snipers opened fire, their bullets sending up puffs of red dust, pitting the surface of the claymen. They may as well have been firing BB guns for all the good their shots did. When the lead hulk reached the barbwire fence surrounding the ranch, it just walked through it, the barbwire tangling uselessly about its legs.

Sergeant Holland whistled and waved at our men waiting at the base of the knoll.

The soldiers scrambled up the hill almost as agile as mountain goats. Two had one-shot missile launchers called LAWs, small tubes that they quickly deployed. They aimed and squeezed their triggers. With a hissing whoosh, the rocket motors ignited and they streaked down the hill in a shower of sparks, and struck home, exploding against the chests of the first two clay men. Clouds of black smoke billowed away, revealing gaping holes blown into their chests. The first fell apart after taking one step, but the second somehow kept coming, enough of its mass left to sustain it. Despite the fact that I could see through the damned thing, the clay man kept plodding closer and closer.

“Set out Claymores,” Sergeant Holland shouted. Three soldiers slid down the knoll and started sticking Claymore antipersonal mines into the ground; small, olive-green rectangles, slightly concave, and stuck into the ground on small legs made of wire. They were powerful, filled with high-explosives and ball bearings, the charges shaped to spray a concentrated area with maiming death.

“Call Sam,” Desiree shouted at me. “We need to know how to kill these things.”

I pulled my satphone out of my pocket, looked up Sam's number in the directory, and called her. It took a moment for the phone to connect to the satellite and another ten seconds before it started ringing. And it rang and rang as the clay men drew closer and closer. They were deceptively fast; while their gait was slow, their stride was very long, and they were already approaching the base of the knoll.

“Pick up, pick up!” I snarled at the phone in frustration.

A boom shook the air as the first claymore detonated, finishing off the second golem and spraying the third one with shrapnel, shearing off its arm; it didn't seem to care. The soldiers opened fire, muzzles flashing, and my ears were assaulted with cracking gunshots. The golems were sprayed with automatic fire, chunks of mud flaking off them, and gouges and pockmarks began to litter their bodies. They still kept coming, the soldier's bullets too small to hurt something that large made of hard-packed clay.

“How many claymores did you set out?” Desiree asked.

“Three,” Sergeant Holland answered. “All we had.”

“¡Mierda!”

We were in trouble. The satphone just rang and rang.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~