When Scylla reaches the point of no return, Nemesis spins around, dragging her tail through a line of cars that are sent spiraling through the air. When her back is to Scylla, she pulls the tail around behind her, whipping it up and out, catching Scylla beneath its outstretched arms. One of the nasty spikes on the end of Nemesis’s tail stabs into the monster’s side, and the force of the blow knocks Scylla up and over, flipping the Kaiju head-over-heels. It seems impossible, that something so large could spin through the air like that, but there it is; a big-ass Kaiju, cartwheeling like Mary Lou Retton.
Scylla slams through the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, crushing both horse and rider, before landing in the Capitol Reflecting Pool with a mighty splash. The impact rolls beneath the White House like an earthquake. Scylla thrashes in the water, draining the large pool. Its groans are pitiful. The monster attempts to roll and sit up, but fails. Then it falls back with a grunt, brown blood flowing from its side. Scylla is down, but not out. Its eyes remain open, its chest heaving with each breath. Mostly it looks confused.
It’s never felt pain before, I think.
And now that it has, it’s stunned. Bewildered. But definitely not mortally wounded. Not if it’s related to Nemesis. It won’t be long before Scylla’s back on its feet. And with the arrival of Karkinos and Typhon, that would be a bad thing.
Nemesis is going to need some help.
I lower the binoculars and take out my phone, dialing Woodstock.
“We’re here.” It’s Alessi.
“Why didn’t Woodstock answer?” I ask.
“He’s flying,” comes the curt answer.
“Why didn’t Collins—”
“She was shot,” Alessi says.
In the fraction of a second before she speaks again, I find myself feeling lightheaded. Panic races through my body, erasing the effects of the adrenaline that’s been coursing through my veins for the past twenty minutes. I feel my legs grow weak. I feel short of breath. My chest hurts.
“Her armor stopped the bullet,” Alessi says, “but she’s pretty sore.”
“I’m fine,” Collins says in the background, her voice barely audible over the chopper’s thrumming rotor blades.
“Where are you?” I ask.
“A mile out from the two bigger Kaiju,” Alessi says. “To the east. We’re within range.”
I glance through the binoculars, looking past the twin titans that are Karkinos and Typhon. Even if I could see past their towering bodies, the smoke, fires and flashing lights of a city gripped by horror make it impossible for me to spot Betty’s running lights in the night sky. “How many shots do we get at this?”
“Two,” she says. “Which one should we target?”
I look at the two approaching Kaiju. Karkinos is a beefier version of Nemesis. It’s a little shorter, but far thicker and more muscular, easily out-weighing Nemesis. It’s also covered in boney spikes, and sports a carapace running down its back, no doubt hiding a pair of reflective wings. I used to think that Nemesis perfectly represented what I thought a monster-god of vengeance would look like, but Karkinos reveals that Nemesis is a more delicate version of what she could have been, probably thanks to Maigo’s DNA.
Typhon is eerily human-like. Very masculine as well. Of all the new Kaiju, he’s the only one I really feel comfortable assigning a sex to. This monster is a dude, hands down, even if he does lack any kind of discernable Kaiju junk. He carries himself with a confidence that is obnoxious. Like he’s actually a god and we’re all ants, barely worth his attention. While the other Kaiju are ruled by emotion, Typhon seems almost cold and calculating. But he’s also far less defended. While he’s got spikes and claws in strategic areas of his body—elbows, knees and forearms, most of him is covered in thick, ropey flesh. The perfect target.
“Typhon,” I say. “Target Typhon.”
“Are you sure?” Endo asks. He’s only heard one side of the conversation, but he knows the plan. “Typhon looks...”
“Smart,” I say. “Yeah, I know. But there’s no way the neural implant is going to get past Karkinos’s armor.”
He thinks on it briefly and then nods, turning back to the impending rumble. I glance up, too, watching as Nemesis turns to fight the two newcomers. For a moment, I think she’s made a mistake, turning her back on Scylla, but she raises that killer tail in the air and slams it down on Scylla’s belly. It doesn’t pierce the skin, but Scylla lurches up, howling in pain.
“Are you ready to go?” I ask into the phone.
“I already adjusted the frequency to match your headset and we’re locked on,” Alessi says.
I put my hand on top of my head, feeling the modified beanie cap. It’s tight and in place, ready to connect my mind to another. If my bucket list included an entry for Most Idiotic Thing Anyone Has Ever Done in the History of the World and Probably the Universe, I could check it off after this. Connecting to Nemesis was one thing. She didn’t resist. But one of these Kaiju? They’re the very definition of hostile. My mental presence isn’t going to be welcome. I could end up in a coma, like Endo, or I could end up lobotomized. “Go ahead. I’m ready.”
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