Reggie spasmed, his cry rising to a soul-shattering shriek. Billi lost her grip on the blood-slick sword and was sent tumbling from a blow from the thrashing tail. He twisted over himself, vainly trying to rid himself of the metre-and-half of steel buried deep in his trunk.
Billi groaned. She was one massive, aching bruise. She could hardly see for the sweat and blood in her eyes. The sweat, hers. The blood, not so much. The floor trembled and bricks tumbled from the ceiling as Reginald crashed through one of the few upright columns. Billi got to her feet, swaying for sure, but that fire in her guts blazing now. She spat blood as she headed toward the vast monster.
There comes a point where living doesn’t matter anymore. Dimly she saw Faustus beside Ivan, but now she didn’t care. She’d gone past heroism, she was here for the kill. Deep down she knew she was broken, that she’d been raised wrong and there wasn’t any true nobility in what she did. She’d never be like Ivan.
Reggie shook the dagger out of his eye. The blade clattered across the flagstones and down the crevasse. The sword was still buried deep within his side but she couldn’t get close enough to grab it. So Billi edged closer, within the reach of the serpent’s twisting, shivering length.
“Come on, you scaly bastard,” she snarled. “Come on!”
Reggie was beyond cunning action or even thought now. He’d been hurt like never before and he was consumed with atavistic rage. More serpent than man, he’d retreated into the most ancient part of the brain which was pure instinct, the reptilian brain. There was only one response, to devour.
Mouth grotesquely distended he launched himself at Billi, as fast as a viper. His speed shocked her, reacting out of base instinct herself, the urge to flee. Reggie racked his serrated fangs along his body, tearing off scales and ploughing deep, bloody furrows through his own flesh. His tail thrashed in pain and he attacked it, totally consumed, totally blinded, by pain and fury.
The eternal snake was devouring itself.
The more he hurt, the more he attacked, and the more he hurt, he was in an endless cycle of mutual destruction. The stones were slippery with blood pouring from a dozen wounds, chunks of throbbing meat lay scattered in the gore and yet he continued, tearing through his own body in an all-consuming frenzy. He chewed through his own tail and it fell off, still twitching as the nerves went through their death cycle.
Billi limped over to collect her sword. It had been knocked free in the frenzy but she could barely lift it, the edge scraped along the stone as she dragged it up.
Reggie continued to tear at himself, but his own strength was fading fast. The damage was appalling. He’d bitten and torn himself apart, even chewing off his own spindly human arm in the process. Now he lay, gasping, snapping with futile rage.
Billi raised her sword over his head.
One more cut and it’s done.
Then Reggie groaned. The bloody meat fell from his jaws and he sank to the floor, curling up as the scales shivered. The flesh withered, sinking into the skeletal structure as the scales flaked off, covering Billi’s feet with their macabre, chromatic beauty.
Something moved from within the remains.
Was he being reborn? Was the new Reginald sloughing his old self? The body within pushed and groaned at its prison of withered, old flesh.
A hand pushed out through Reginald’s slack, wide-opened jaw. Slim-fingered, delicate and desperate.
Was it possible?
Dropping her sword, Billi grabbed hold, locking her fingers around the wrist. “Guys! Help me!”
Faustus and Ivan were over in moments. A second hand emerged from the snake’s gullet and grabbed Billi’s. The boys pulled the jaws wider apart.
Erin was vomited out in a wave of blood and greasy saliva, and straight into Billi’s arms. Billi hugged her as she lay there, curled up, shivering. Ivan whipped off his shirt and covered her.
Billi wiped the worst of the gore away from Erin’s face. “You’re okay, Erin. I’ve got you.”
Her eyes were squeezed shut and she was trembling as if still in her nightmare. Billi pressed her own cheek against hers, saying nothing.
“Am I… alive?” whispered Erin. “I was in Hell, Billi. There was a devil there. He did so many —”
“He’s gone. You beat him.”
“Beat him? But he was so strong.”
Billi raised Erin’s chin. “And you were stronger.”
Erin slowly opened her eyes, afraid of what she might see. Was this some new trick? A fresh torture? Billi felt her fear, her dread.
The walls began to shake once more. The floor swayed as the crevasses opened up wider. Bricks fell from the ceiling and the remaining columns started to crack apart. The castle above them groaned as huge stones slid against each other. Ivan scooped Erin up in his arms. “We are leaving.”
Too right.
Faustus protected his own head as he scanned around. “The Anunnaki are losing contact with this realm, but they’re taking a piece with it. We really don’t want to linger.”
“Don’t wait for me,” said Billi as she grabbed her sword. The whole catacombs tottered, leaning this way then that, the cracks becoming chasms and the chasms collapsing down to crash into the churning waves below. They stumbled towards the stairs, Faustus leading and Billi helping Ivan as he carried Erin in his arms. The floor sloped wildly and Billi had to hook her arms around a column to stop sliding all the way into the rocks. The Anunnaki raged and their fury was cataclysmic. The dimensions buckled and fractured, then reformed to shatter again as the Old Ones struggled to cling onto this universe they so lusted for.
