purple in places as if the entire being was one mass of gangrenous corruption.
Janea hefted the battery-powered sprayer and showered the mass with a yellow powder.
“A-ku-surgo, ka-ka-gree!” Janea shouted triumphantly, then grimaced. The tentacles were continuing to creep into the room. The thing, fortunately, wasn’t moving fast. As if it wanted to maximize the terror.
“Isn’t working,” Barb commented, still backing up. There wasn’t much more to back to.
“I noticed,” Janea said. “A-ku-surgo, ka-ka-gree!”
“Right,” Barb said, flipping onto her back. “Let’s try this my way. Lord, send me Your aid in battle against evil and I will in Your name kick some unholy ass!”
With her back on the floor, she pushed off of a notched spot in the ceiling and slid towards the monster on her back, wakizashi crossed.
Over the years Barb had studied practically every form found in the East. Traveling from place to place, the one constant was that as soon as they arrived, her father would use his contacts as an FAO to find not only a martial arts studio but the very best that would take a female. As time went on, and Barb’s ability improved, the word would usually precede them.
But there was never, or rarely, the same style available at the best facility at the next posting. Hong Kong, it was Wah Lum; Singapore, Mantis; Thailand, kickboxing and krabi krabong; Japan, bushido and karate; Okinawa, tuete, and so on. All of them had combined into a personal style that Barb mentally dubbed Barb-do-kicki. Which translated as: “whatever works.”
Fighting a multitentacled demon from nightmare was never part of any of the training. But she’d fought up to six students of centipede who were used to working together, so it was close. The position was centipede, the sword work krabi krabong, the swords Japanese. Barb-do-kicki at its essence.
The only problem being that the swords bounced right off the tentacles.
“Janea, find another chant or something,” Barb said, spinning around and slamming a tentacle with a round kick. The tentacle tried to grab her leg but slid off of the slippery suit. Spinning again, she slapped two more away with the swords and flicked a point into one of the thousands of eyes. That, at least, sunk home.
“God, now would be a really nice time to prove the Priestess wrong,” Barb said, concentrating on her channel. Finally, she felt a surge of power. “Thank you, Lord,” Barb said, slicing a tentacle off at the tip.
The thing keened a loud cry and redoubled its efforts to get through the spinning swords and legs. It pulled itself fully into the chamber, revealing a bulbous body at the center that was no more pleasant than the rest of it.
Janea was chanting a series of prayers, some of them in languages Barb actually recognized.
“Was that Tibetan?” Barb asked.
“Yes,” Janea said, desperately. “I don’t know what this thing is! If I don’t know what it is I don’t know which dispel to use!”
“Fine,” Barb said, her eyes lighting as the swords began to glow. “We’ll do this my way.”
She slid forward again, the wakizashi crossing in a butterfly pattern and shredding tentacles as she went. They did regrow, and were covering her in pumped ichor, but the important thing was that they were opening up a hole to get to the body of the creature.
One finally managed to wrap around her arm, but she countered by rewrapping multiple times, reeling herself rapidly into close quarters with the Old One.
Once there, a single stab of a glowing wakizashi drove deep into the amorphous body of the creature. As the sword reached its vitals she felt a massive wave of power pass through her, and the thing exploded like a pus-filled water balloon, drenching the chamber in ichor and an unholy stench.
“Ack!” Barb said, rolling onto her stomach and blowing out ichor. There was more in her nose than her mouth, but it was foul either way. And it stung the eyes like acid. “Yuck! Ptui!”
“Okay, so I guess The White God does get involved with Old Ones,” Janea said, shaking the ichor-covered mass of papers in her hand. “And… yuck!”
“Lord,” Barb said, rolling to her knees and bowing her head. “Thank you for Your assistance with defeating evil this day. May Your Name be glorified in company with Your Son, Jesus Christ. Bring comfort to the soul of Professor Argyll and take him into Your arms. Whatever his sins of this life, he died in battle against evil in Your Name. Amen. Okay, Thane, how do I…” Barb paused and shook her head. “Sugar.”
The student was back against the wall, his eyes wide and unseeing. A line of drool was hanging from his open mouth and the only noise he was making was a faint mewing of terror.
“Well, Freya does get involved, as it turns out,” Barb said, flicking the swords to clear them of ichor.
“How?” Janea said, somewhat bitterly.
“You’re not totally insane,” Barb said, gesturing at the student. “That makes three bodies we’re going to have to extract.”
“You’re really going to try to go up there after the girl?” Janea asked.
“Of course,” Barb said, looking at her in surprise. “How else? I’m also going to have to get the professor.”
As she said that, Lazarus came out of the far opening a bit sheepishly.
“Welcome back,” Barb said. “And next time I’m going to listen to you.”
“Barb,” Janea said, eyeing the hole. “Look, let’s try to drag Thane back then get some more professionals. I’m not even sure I can find the way out.”
“There’s a li…” Barb looked towards the exit and stopped. “Where’s the line?”
“Cedar took it with him,” Janea said, shaking her head. “I’m really unsure about finding our way out.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Barb said, sliding over to the opening. “I’m gonna need a push. Oh, and I suppose we need to tie me off in case I get stuck.”
“Aaaruck!” Barb snarled as she finally cleared her hips from the hole. “That felt like being born again.”
“Should work fine for you,” Janea said.
“Christian jokes,” Barb muttered, rubbing her hip. It turned out that bringing the pistol in a holster was impossible. She’d ended up sticking it in her belt on her front. She’d had a wakizashi in either hand, though. One up, one down, unsheathed and being very careful. “It’s more open up here.”
The cavern was a chute climbing upwards at about a sixty-degree angle to the north. At about six feet wide and more than ten feet high, it was one of the more open areas they’d passed through. She could see where it leveled off again about twenty feet up, and possibly an even more open area at the top. Getting up it was going to be a chore, though. The floor was slick with slime, ichor and blood.
“Professor’s not here,” Barb said. “Safety first,” she added, sheathing the swords.
She got down on all fours and tried to climb up the chute, but she kept sliding down. The second time, her leg slid into the hole to the lower chamber, nearly breaking it.
“This is impossible,” she said, sitting down. Then she noticed that the rope that ascended up the chute. Presumably still tied to the professor’s ankle, it was tucked to one side in a slight cleft that ran along the chute.
She pulled it out and flicked it to the side, trying her weight on it. Wherever the professor was now, he seemed to be solidly stuck.
“This is a bit morbid,” she said, pulling on the rope, then carefully climbing up the chute hand-over-hand. About halfway she slipped and fell on her face, bruising her chin, but she was able to get enough purchase with her feet to make it to the top.
As she neared the top, she stopped and sniffed and listened. The smell of ichor was overwhelming but there was no sound from the chamber beyond.
“How’s it going?” Janea shouted.
The voice boomed through the cavern and Barb suppressed an ungodly curse.
“Quiet,” she hissed, listening again. Still nothing.
She pulled herself over the opening and drew her pistol, triggering the SureFire flashlight on it in addition to her helmet light and quickly shining both around.
The cave was, for once, high and wide with the traditional stalactites and stalagmites. It was still dark with the slime mold, and in places there were deep pools of ichor. It definitely looked like the creature’s lair.
She followed the rope to a crack between two of the stalagmites where the professor’s body was wedged. All
