“How many men do you have up here?”
“Counting you guys, eight.”
That would be a very tight fit. “Load them up.” Julie shouted for the others and waved them toward the Hind. Ed helped me up the stairs to the landing pad, and a few seconds later I was climbing inside the Hind. It appeared that Skippy was ready to go. Julie got in behind me. “What’s your plan?” she shouted, trying to be heard over the rotors. I mostly read her lips.
I pulled down a headset from the overhead rack and pulled it on. “Skippy, as soon as everyone is loaded, get us in the air.”
“Go where?” Skippy asked.
“Pick a direction and run, fast as you can.” Gargoyles were capable of surprising speed, but they would be no match for Skippy. Though driving in a helicopter through a magical hurricane was probably stupid, Sam said we could fly right out of here. Being dead didn’t make you infallible, so I sure hoped he was right or we were totally screwed.
Edward climbed in next, and then extended his hand to help in a slight figure. I realized it was Tanya the elf, but before Julie or I could say anything, Ed looked at us and put his finger over his face mask to indicate silence. If his brother realized that there was an elf on his chopper there would be absolute hell to pay. We couldn’t leave any of our people up here to die, but I wasn’t sure if Skippy would agree that elves counted as people, and there was no time to argue about it.
Julie’s snipers were moving back from the edges. John VanZant came running up, carrying a Barrett M-82 that was nearly as big as he was. Lacoco was being helped along by the stranger. They were almost to the chopper when there was a flash of red lightning. The running Hunters were swept off their feet. The Hind rocked and swayed on its tires, our spinning rotors dipping wildly toward the ground.
“Look!” Julie pointed out the door.
Gargoyles were swarming over the side of the roof, their blank stone eyes focusing on the Hind. There was a flash of purple lightning, the sky broke open, and shadows flashed above as dozens of beating wings filled the sky. The gargoyles had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. They were circling, preparing to dive-bomb their stone bodies against our only escape.
The hotel rocked under another tremendous assault, which bounced our chopper, sending it turning sideways. It felt like the hotel was going to collapse. Skippy shouted something that had to be orcish profanity. The other Hunters were knocked off their feet and sent jittering wildly across the shaking roof. Lacoco realized that he was coming dangerously close to our dipping rotor and scrambled away on his hands and knees.
A gargoyle fell out of the sky. It didn’t even spread its wings before hitting the roof hard enough to make a crater. The unfamiliar Hunter disappeared, smashed beneath the creature. It had only missed our rotor because of the wild bouncing of the building.
The gargoyle was between us and Lacoco. More were crashing into the roof all around us. One hit and we were done.
The other Hunters weren’t going to make it.
Julie began unstrapping herself. She was going after them.
If we fail here, everyone dies.
“Stone birds! Stone birds!” Skippy bellowed. “Must go!” A gargoyle hit on the other side and the shrapnel cracked the window.
It would be a lie to say that my decision was hard or easy. Those concepts imply having the luxury of time enough to think it through. It just was what it was. We couldn’t risk hundreds of lives for two. I reached out and grabbed Julie’s hand before she could finish unbuckling herself. She tugged against my bloody hand until she realized what I was doing. I made the call. “Skippy! Get us in the air!” I shouted.
“No! Those Hunters—” Julie was stunned.
“Fly, Skippy, now!”
Skippy complied. The Hind rolled forward on the landing pad.
VanZant had managed to maneuver his gigantic sniper rifle around in the prone position and began firing the .50 at the gargoyle embedded in the roof, splattering molten rock with each massive impact. Lacoco staggered to his feet. Understanding registered on his battered face that he wasn’t going to reach us in time, and then we were moving up and forward and I lost sight of him through the door.
Julie was staring at me, eyes filled with disbelief. The Nachtmar is after me, I told myself, trying to not make it any more painful than it already was. He’ll concentrate on me. They can fall back. It’ll concentrate on me. If we fail here, everyone dies. I repeated it like a mantra.
“Hold to something!” Skippy roared. The Hind nearly turned on its side as we left the hotel. Loose items rolled free. Tanya hadn’t gotten strapped in yet, but one of Edward’s hands flew out with lightning speed and snagged her by the shirt. Ed pulled her in and wrapped one arm around her to keep her in place.
A black shape streaked past our open door. Wings tucked in and falling like a bomb, the gargoyle had missed our rotor by mere inches. It slammed into the edge of the hotel, obliterating twenty feet of it, and hurtling over the edge. It would’ve gotten us if we’d stayed any longer. The entire world shifted as Skippy turned us the other way. Another gargoyle screamed past. Sparks flew as something nicked our chopper’s side. Then I didn’t know which way was up, as the view through the door was gray nightmare fog, then ground, then fog again. The chopper shook as something clipped us toward the rear. A warning buzzer sounded and a red light began to flash in the interior.
But then we were upright again, the hotel was behind us, and we were hurtling into the unknown. We’d made it through the hail of gargoyles. “Frolugsh!” Skippy exclaimed. “Stone bird hit! Not tail row-tor again. Not good. Not good.” I tugged the door closed. The angry red warning light was still flashing. I couldn’t read Cyrillic but I was pretty sure that one said something about Kiss Your Ass Goodbye. Smoke was pouring into the cabin.
“Keep going straight, Skippy,” I said. We could crash, just please let us get out of this world first. Looking around, Edward seemed calm as usual, Tanya was utterly terrified, especially since the only thing that had kept her from flying out the door had been Ed’s reflexes, but Ed hadn’t let go of her yet.
When I glanced at my wife, she was giving me the angriest, most hurt expression that I’d ever seen from her. Who could blame her? I hated myself too. “I had no choice.”
“You always have a choice!” Julie got on her radio. “John? Jason? Come in John? VanZant, Lacoco, can you hear me? Damn it…Get inside, fall back, find cover. John?”
“I’m sorry.” It was too much for her. Julie hit me. We were sitting too close for her to get much energy into it, but she tried. She hit me again. I let her. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“I’ve heard that before! They’re going to die. You abandoned them!”
Yes, I had. Hanging onto a metal ladder in a hot engine room with a vampire below me and a hatch slammed shut in my face. I knew exactly how it felt. “If we don’t make it out, then every single mortal trapped in this realm is as good as dead. I have to get back to the real world.” It was a new feeling, seeing such anger directed at me from my wife. It hurt a lot worse than my physical injuries. “You’ve got to trust—”
“Shut up.” Julie held up a hand. “I’ve got something on the radio. John? Are you okay?”
I picked it up in my headset. The voice of the Nachtmar was deep, thick, hoarse, and every bit as chilling as his physical presence. “You will not escape me that easily, Chosen…For I know what you are now. I can see the chains of destiny you wear. I will take your chains. I will taste your fear and I will grow strong. My essence lingers upon you. There is no escape for you.”
If he concentrated his energies on me, then he wouldn’t be able to expend them against the other Hunters. “Come and get me, alp.”
“A word. There are many words. That is the wrong word.” The Nachtmar hissed. “Your learned humans were fools. They believed I am less than I am. They did not capture me as they captured my children. They did not take me from this place. I allowed them to take me from this place. They did not use me. I used them. I am king here. I have been and always will be. They did not give me thought. I have tasted the fear of Chosen before. I took their words and made them mine. I took their words and told new stories. When dogs feasted upon the bodies in the streets of Bactria, I was there. The harvesters of flesh allowed me to harvest their dreams. I am and always will be. This is my finest vessel yet, and I will not allow you to take him from me until the superior vessel is ripe.”
I was developing a rapidly sinking feeling that this thing wasn’t an ordinary alp.
“I have travelled the dark paths of your mind world. Many of your paths are closed to me by the Others. Your mind is a cage. It contains stories that only wish to be told, but humans fear the freedom of the words. I will break through your mind cage. I will taste your fear. I will take your words and tell your story. I will take your chains. You will become a harvester of the flesh on my behalf. In my name. For I am and always will be.”
The chopper shook as we were buffeted with winds that were stupidly dangerous to be flying in. “Skippy, are you seeing anything up there that looks like Earth yet?”
“Pretty lights,” Skippy answered over the rattling and squealing warning sirens.
Great. That was either Las Vegas or Hell. It really could go either way right then and I wouldn’t have been surprised in the least. “Just get us there.”
The voice on the radio changed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Pitt. It would appear that I have underestimated our foe…”
“Management? Is that you?”
“Yes.” The dragon sounded weak, pained, his breathing labored. “I did my best, but I could not stop him. He ripped it from my mind. He combed through my treasures…” There was a long wheezing noise. Management was in pain. “He went back to the beginning, when I was a hatchling and the great dragonfathers ruled the sky. Beware…He means to devour you.”
The Nachtmar returned. “I have taken the great beast’s words and I will tell his story.”
And the radio turned to static.
Edward’s head swiveled from side to side, suddenly suspicious. The orc was sensing something. Without a word he disentangled from Tanya, unbuckled himself, moved to the door, unlatched it and slid it open. Disregarding the wind and the potential fall into eternal nothingness, Ed looked back the way we’d come from and twitched in surprise, which was a remarkable display of emotion for the orc warrior. Then he signaled that Julie and I needed to come take a look.
The Last Dragon complex was in the distance, partially visible only as the sheets of mist moved and the unnatural lightning provided illumination, but the gaping hole in the middle of it was obvious. Something had torn its way out of the ground. The central gardens had been replaced with a fresh new hole.
Julie looked at me and mouthed the word, “Management?”
The lightning cracked the gray open above us, and for the briefest instant we could see shape of something vast and winged coming after us.