He had defeated the ancient three-headed foe. He had accepted the obeisance of the others. He had rested, and then heard the song, the strange voice of another. He had followed the call and been met with the sting and fire of the small ones, but the prey had eluded him. He could not find it. Not in the deeps, where no sunlight reached, not in the shallows, in the reefs bustling with life, not in the currents where the great swimmers travelled. His territory seemed safe again. But as his anger subsided, as he sank toward his place of rest, his territory was invaded. Not by the hidden one, but by the Other, another ancient enemy, older than the three-headed one, a rivalry written into his very blood and bone.
So he sought him, and they fought, and again the small ones attacked him with their stings and smoke, and he knew that something was changing. Those who once fought with him had turned against him.
The world had changed before; it was always changing, mostly slowly, sometimes quickly.
What never changed was his territory.
Victorious over the ancient enemy and its small allies, he had gone, once again thinking of rest, but the waters still stank, the winds that blew from the core of the world still carried the shadow of the nemesis, and he thought perhaps the ancient adversary was not dead after all. He had not seen the corpse. He had been lulled by quiet, but quiet did not always mean victory. So he renewed his patrol. He sensed something in the direction of the cold place, where the three-headed one had once slept. So he turned there, following the falling current, the cold flow from the end of the planet.
But then, like a blow, he felt the hidden one, hidden no longer. A weak, thin voice no more. An intruder, an illness, a blight in the midst of his territory. With a bright shriek of rage, he turned that way, and he swam. He followed the dark paths that cut through the crust. And even when the distant cry faded, it was still burned in his memory. He knew it would wake again, that it was waiting for him.
He would not make it wait long.
Apex Facility, Hong Kong
Another set of warning buzzers went off, and these sounded a lot more … serious. Madison heard a grinding behind them and turned to see that one of the huge, numbered hangar doors—this one was labeled with a large number ten—was lowering behind them. She heard a scratching, and then another hideous shriek as claws jammed through the opening, and a long wicked snout pushed through.
Skullcrawler, she realized. A big one.
Bernie and Josh screamed like they were being disemboweled. She was vaguely aware that they were also running like hell, but all she could do was stare at the nightmare coming through the door. It was like something in the back of her brain was commanding her to be still, that maybe it would not see her, that it would go after the moving prey. It was exactly like she was back in Boston, with Ghidorah staring through the window at her. Like she had never really escaped…
“Madison!” Bernie yelled. “Get to the hatch!”
She didn’t know what he was talking about, but the shout snapped her out of it. She turned and started pumping her legs as hard as she could, following Bernie and Josh. She heard the Skullcrawler coming behind her, fast, like the biggest set of nails scrabbling across a chalkboard the size of Boston Common.
She saw what the other two were running toward now, the little octagonal bunker set down into the floor. Probably for observing stuff like this up close and personal…
Then she felt its hot breath on her back, choked on the charnel stench of it. She saw Josh and Bernie climbing into the top of the little bunker, but she was still yards away. She did the only thing she could; she threw herself flat, hoping it would just run right over her.
She did not think it would work. This is over, she thought.
And yet, the claws and teeth didn’t sink into her; the hideous pain she anticipated did not arrive. Instead, she only felt a whoosh of air.
* * *
As Number Ten came out of his cage and ran across the floor, Ren allowed himself a grin.
He loved Skullcrawlers. They were so extreme; it was literally impossible for them to eat enough to sate their hunger. They were always starving; they had no patience at all for stalking or hiding; evolution had designed them to kill, eat, repeat. It was surprising they ever found time to mate, and that they did not eat each other while they were doing so. Although some studies suggested that males did not always fare well in such amorous encounters.
He admired their purity, and he absolutely had no compunction about killing them. As they were made to prey on everything else, he had been built to end them. He was the alpha now, the apex predator.
Any other animal might have known it was dead when he picked it up in his powerful hands, already squeezing the life out of it. But not a Skullcrawler. It still somehow saw a meal in front of it, a fight it could win.
He felt the smile grow inside of him as the energy built up in the infernal engines contained in this body. Everything was becoming more. He senses were sharpening, his strength building. Instincts buried deep in the ancient, reptilian part of his brain broke through the barriers his primate mind had built around them, freeing him to be everything his kind had ever been since crawling from the ocean. He had claws,
