Cross inched forward. The night’s chill was bitterer than before. He heard something in the air, a distant dirge like birdsong.
Gunshots rang out and echoed into the sky. They came from the far side of the structure. He saw no trace of Cradden, Lucan or Maddox, so Cross shuffled down the hillside and carefully toed the edge of the ice-covered black lake.
He listened.
There was something there with him, and it was neither human nor spirit. Cross had sensed it before, that same overwhelming and ancient presence he’d felt when they’d first arrived at Shul Ganneth. Whatever it was, it was very old, and it made the air seem brittle. Cross had wondered if what he sensed was an effect of Shul Ganneth, as that would have made some sense. That place had been a temple refuge for the Maloj, after all, primal arcane natives who in their time had commanded vast and terrible powers. According to tales, their home had been as devastated as Earth had by The Black, and significant portions of their twisted arcane geography and spatial biomechanical tools had been left half-lodged between worlds. Earth had only been exposed to a fraction of what that mad race of lupine theurgists had created. Cross had only seen some of their locales and relics, but what he had seen was powerful, and defied most of what he’d learned about magic.
But what he felt there outside wasn’t born of Shul Ganneth, he was sure of it. It was a presence. Something else was there in the ruins, something Cross hadn’t seen yet. It froze his spirit in her place, and cowed her. He felt her wither in its shadow.
Cross traced his way along the edge of the frozen shore, which broke into salt crust beneath the toes of his boots. Cracks littered the edge of the black lake and shot out several feet into the ice, like caricatures of dark lightning.
He saw where dust piles had been broken apart or flattened. Cross pulled his spirit close, and her slippery electric form pushed against him. He set her to the task of keeping his weight light as he moved. She took pressure off of his wounded leg, and she gave him just enough of a telekinetic lift to glide him along the ice.
Cross felt himself fading; he was on the brink of passing out. His spirit’s anxiousness kept him conscious.
Stay alert. There’s something out there in the dark.
Cross knew that Dillon was en route, but he didn’t have time to wait.
He made his way towards the crumbling cluster of broken monuments at the far side of the onyx lake. So much sediment and debris had frozen into the ice it looked like a slab of marble. Lupine faces and serpentine limbs from shattered statues lay scattered everywhere. The far bank was a barrier of frozen charcoal dust. Stone faces from shattered statues peered out through an ice cold mist that smelled of lye.
Cross moved carefully. His eyes had trouble adjusting to the gloomy green light. Everything seemed distorted and distant, as if he moved underwater. His boots pushed through crusts of petrified basalt and frozen ash. The air tasted sick.
Slowly he made his way off of the ice and onto the far shore, near the small set of ruins that stood outside of Shul Ganneth, the ruins that Dillon had spied on his earlier reconnoiter.
A truck sat at the far side of the felled monuments. It was an old-fashioned M2 Army transport that had been painted black. Such artifacts were rare outside of the Southern Claw, and those that still existed were used sparingly in favor of the arcane airships, which didn’t require traditional gasoline, but instead were powered by thaumaturgic fuel. The truck growled with a low grinding sound, like a metal animal gasping for breath.
“ Damn it!”
The voice was Cradden’s. He sat behind the wheel in the truck cab. Blood ran down one side of his face. Maddox and Lucan, both lucid and unsteady, sat in the truck bed.
Cross didn’t hesitate. He sent his spirit forward in a rain of fiery nails. Smoke trailed the spiky projectiles as they seared through metal and glass. The air was alight with hundreds of incendiary ribbons.
Spirits tangled. Cradden raised a shield that deflected many of the missiles so that they exploded in a rain of sparks and steel shards.
A shadow flickered at the edge of Cross’ vision. He turned just in time to see Gregor emerge from behind a shattered stone monument. Gregor’s goggles reflected the fire of the arcane battle, and he aimed his shotgun squarely at Cross’ head.
Machine gun fire tore through the night. Vos and Dillon ran out of the darkness behind Cross, kicking up clouds of black dust and ice silt.
Vos gunned down Gregor with his MP5. Gregor’s body fell onto the ice lake, which cracked but didn’t break beneath his dead weight.
Something stirred. Cross sensed it more than felt it: a waking. The air shook. Something snaked out of the folds of night shadow and gripped the core of his being. Its touch was as icy as death. His spirit felt it, too, and she pulled away as if she’d been touched by something poisonous.
Cross ducked back behind a wall and looked at the ice. Dark steam escaped from the cracks beneath Gregor’s corpse. The air grew darker, soiled by a thick unguent like ghastly coal dust.
It’s hiding under the ice, he realized. That presence, whatever it was, that same dismal and overwhelming entity that Cross had sensed the moment they’d drawn close to Shul Ganneth, was itself an alien there, an intruder. Its power was immense. It’s at least as powerful as Lucan, and maybe more so. And it’s waking up.
With horror, Cross realized what it was.
If anyone else sensed the Sleeper’s rise from the black lake, they made no sign of it. Bullets flew everywhere. Vos charged forward and sprayed the side of the truck with gunfire. Dillon, Black and Cole brought Kane and Ekko the long away around the ice, and they ducked behind the stone ruins for cover. The vampire floated behind them, still chained by fire.
Cradden’s spirit howled at them in a tidal wave of acid and frost. Cross shifted his own spirit up and formed a whirling shield, a blade of air that cleaved Cradden’s spirit in two.
Black’s spirit leapt forward and shattered her brother’s attack. Dark fire and steaming cold washed over them. The air exploded with noise. The backlash of arcane energy made Cross reel as force hammered into him. Black was stunned, and Cradden fell to the ground.
Maddox, the Doj giant, crashed into them with his sword. Cross’s spirit was weak, dazed from the battle, but he drew her up with both fists. Thaumaturgy crackled in his gauntlets. She formed another shield, a sheet of invisible steel that only barely deflected the massive blade as it came at Cross’ skull.
The world spun. Cross fell. He had only the vaguest sense that he’d been knocked off of the shore, or that he’d collapsed onto the smoking lake no not there the shadows are leaking out and next to Gregor’s body. He blinked, and he looked back towards the battle.
Vos screamed as Maddox cut him in half. Shots fired and bones snapped.
A fiery body flew over his head.
Danica Black used her control over the vampire’s chains to hurl the undead at Maddox like a feral missile. The burning chains exploded as the vampire and the Doj entangled. The vampire clawed and sank its fangs into Maddox even as they both burst into flames. The Doj tried to pry it off, but the vampire’s talons sank deep into his chest. Undead and giant wrestled in a flaming mass of blood, flesh and flame, a writhing tower of limbs and burning skin. They were a flailing skin torch.
Cross rose unsteadily to his feet.
Cradden Black turned and ran. He only made it three steps before the front of his face exploded as a bullet crashed through the back of his head. Dillon coldly chambered a round in his MK-14 and fired another bullet into Cradden’s body before he’d even hit the ground.
“ Nooooo!” Danica stopped, and pointed her pistol at Dillon.
Cross stood up, weakened from the pain in his leg. He stumbled onto the shore.
The ice smoked behind him. The steam flowed faster.
“ Danica…”
“ I said I didn’t want him hurt!” she shouted.
“ Dillon, Black, both of you!” Cross shouted. “We don’t have time for this…”
The Sleeper exploded out of the ice.
Great chunks of steaming hot crystal flew into the sky. Cross saw molten night burst skyward like a dark geyser.
