The Adventurers fought as a unit now, and with the power of the talismans they were strong. They ripped a hole through the Mayombreros in a whirlwind of fire and steel. General Poule shook blood and sweat from his scalp, panting. 'There!' he screamed, and pointed to an EXIT sign twenty feet away.
It was the last thing he said. In the next instant he was down, buried in a forest of fangs and ripping claws.
The rest reached the stairwell. Bishop slammed the door shut on a hairy arm. It dropped to the ground, writhing and trying to crawl to the attack. Cipher's magic burned it.
'Seal the door!' Bishop yelled. Magical bolts hit it from three directions, slagging it shut.
'That won't stop them,' Acacia said, sagging against the wall.
'Yeah,' Tammi said. 'But it'll take them a minute. Maybe. And meanwhile…'
Alphonse was gasping. That had been close. Very close. Mayombrero talons had nearly clawed his belt loose.
And that wouldn't have worked at all. Not at all.
I've got something for you, Bishop. It's almost payday.
The base of the stairwell was abandoned. Tammi touched the closed door gingerly. As she did, they could hear the ringing of an alarm klaxon. Insistent. Frightening. 'This is it,' she whispered. 'Everything depends on what happens next. Any last thoughts?'
There was an awful silence, in which only the klaxon spoke. Then Mary-em raised her hand.
Griffln stiffened. It would be good to hear the clarion call to battle, as spoken by this redoubtable Warrior- woman. What would she have to say? Words to stir the blood, no doubt. They all leaned close.
'Ah…' Mary-em said, mouth twisting into a rueful smile. 'I think my water broke.'
38
Friday, July 22, 2059 8:23 P.M.
The upper door was being battered in, one shuddering crunch at a time. Cipher lit Oya's chillum pipe and puffed smoke to form a magical window. It showed them the Mallbeasts slamming their bodies mindlessly against the portal. Horribly, they seemed to ignore the tact that their own flesh was tearing, their own bones breaking with the effort.
But at the bottom of the stairs, a delicate miracle was taking place.
Tammi stood with her back to the Adventurers, scanning the landing above them. The Mayombreros would have to get through her first. Bishop and Acacia stood guard at the bottom. Top Nun focused all of her energies on the task of bringing Mary-em's child into the world.
'Push!' she coaxed. Mary-em gave a convincing imitation of a woman attempting to pass a watermelon. She bucked and writhed, she held her breath until she purpled, and she screamed and clawed the ground, gasping.
Then her abdomen glowed. Within that glow, curled sleepily, was the child of Chango, an ethereal infant who looked at them with huge star-child eyes and said, quite clearly, 'I've changed my mind. I'm not coming out.'
Mary-em blanked with shock. 'What?'
'I'm perfectly comfortable right here, Mom.'
She sputtered, searching for words that didn't come. 'Well-what am I supposed to do?'
'Sit back,' the babe suggested, 'and watch the show.'
Above them there was a rending shriek, the unmistakable cry of a door being wrenched from its hinges.
'Whatever you're gonna do, better make it fast!' Tammi yelled.
And something did happen. The light in Mary-em's stomach expanded, and expanded-became a seething cascade thrusting against the bottom door. Griffin watched disbelievingly as it bowed outward as if pushed by a giant's hand. Its hinges screeched, and it was ripped entirely away in a shower of plastic and metal, flying a dozen feet before clattering to the floor.
And then they were in the reactor room. The warning klaxon grew loud and insistent. 'Warning,' a synthesised voice said coldly. 'The reactor has entered a terminal overload state. You have five minutes to initiate shutdown…'
The light contracted again and formed into Chango junior. Tucked safely in Mommy's tummy, he sucked his thumb. 'Did I do good, Mom?'
'Ah… what can I say?'
'By the way I'm not fragile anymore. Neither are you.'
Mary-em's nut-brown face creased in a smile. 'You mean I can fight?'
'Does the term 'Mommy Tiger' mean anything to you?'
With a vast sigh of relief, Mary-em pulled her staff from her back, balanced it in her hand, and touched a hidden button. It expanded to a four-foot length.
'What'll I call you?' she asked.
'Junior will do. Kick butt, Mom.'
She grinned a feral grin. 'You gotta love 'im.'
The reactor room was a living sea of swarming demonic forms, clotted like weeds in the Sargasso Sea. Only Junior's radiance kept them at bay.
A swarm of Mayombreros boiled down from the top of the stairs, howling. As Junior's light expanded and touched the other talismans, they burst into new light. The Staff of Oranyan talisman blazed at Acacia's neck. The Nommo crown, the Oggun Necklace, and the crutch of Babalu-Aye shone like captive stars.
The Adventurers pushed their way into the control room through a raging, foaming swarm of demons.
Top Nun raised her voice. 'That reactor has such a mad on. Gonna get a lot worse, real quick.'
'Can you protect us?' Griffin asked.
'Maybe yes, maybe no.'
'Dammit, try!'
'Warning. You now have four minutes to initiate shutdown…'
Completely covered by a series of interlocking shields, Griffin and the surviving Adventurers fought their way slowly across the room. It was paved and walled in white tile. Stinking water covered the floor in puddles and trickled down the walls into the electrical connections, which sizzled and popped and reeked of burnt insulation.
The Mayombreros had backed away from the energy barrier. Tammi could slash at them through it, but they couldn't reach her. They watched with hungry eyes as the party edged across the floor.
On the far side of the room, there was a panel almost entirely shrouded with the wispy demonic forms. They seemed to feed at it, to leech upon it. As the Adventurers watched, the shadows suckled, expanded, divided and grew teeth, flew at them and were beaten back by the shields.
But with every attack, the shields buckled just a little bit more before regaining strength.
'Can we get close to it?' Bishop held his sword in both hands, blade slanting at a seventy-degree angle.
'I'm not sure,' Top Nun said. She gasped and stumbled before she caught herself. She was buckling with the effort.
The reactor's main panel pulsed and glowed, and the air around it shimmered with demons. One managed to squeeze its way through the shields and attach itself to Top Nun's chest. She turned grey and then white, the life- force leaving her in a visible current. Then Mary-em's hand touched her arm. Color flowed back into Top Nun's face, and the vampiric demon crumbled to dust, fading to the ground.
'Warning, you now have three minutes to initiate shutdown sequence…'
A few more steps, and they had made it to the main panel. Light streamed from the Nommo crown atop Tammi's head, and the Plexiglas shield over the controls slid to the side.
Captain Cipher examined the motherboard. He touched a dial here, a switch there and the wall opened up.
Beyond it lay a steel-lined corridor. It hummed with energy. Water lay in puddles. At the hallway's end, lights
