Infernal

Jefferson recoiled in surprise at the sudden appearance of Farris. He’d watched Sophia shoot him. In the face. The man should be lying dead on another Earth, reduced to chunks of gruesome chow by coyotes and bugs or lying in a morgue somewhere on that distant world. Not emerging whole from the Rip here on this Earth and throwing things at him.

He reflexively batted the object away with the Desert Eagle. It fell heavily but harmlessly to the floor in front of him, cracked on one side and leaking a milky, viscous fluid. As Richard fell to his knees and crawled his way to the far side of the chamber—Whole, Jefferson thought briefly, observing the blood now dripping from Richard’s nose and mouth and the painful way he dragged himself along, but not at all hale and hearty—Alex took a closer look at the thing Richard had thrown at him. It was grayish green and leathery, about the size of a beach ball but elliptical in shape rather than spherical. It didn’t look like a bomb of any sort he’d seen before. It looked innocuous, harmless. In fact, with the fluid leaking from the crack up the side it looked like nothing more than a large broken egg.

“Ooh,” Richard wheezed from across the chamber. He coughed twice and blood drooled down his chin to puddle on the floor. Despite being in obvious pain he grinned. “You probably should have caught that.”

Jefferson’s lip curled with anger and he leveled his gun at Richard’s head. First him, he thought, then the girl. Then we’ll see who’s smiling. His finger tightened on the trigger.

When the forty-two foot crested dragon that had pursued Richard into the Rip on the sanctuary Earth burst violently into the chamber the oculus shattered. It had been designed to focus energy on a single point within its periphery but not to withstand mass of such enormous proportions. Shards of the two foot thick composite ring shot outwards in every direction. Miranda Cortez, the systems technician, was impaled through the chest by a three foot long metallic and composite spear of debris. She had time to goggle at the length and girth of the dragon’s bluish black scaled body before the lack of blood to her brain shut down her vision and darkness escorted her into oblivion. Maxwell Perry, the med tech, was beheaded when a basketball sized chunk of the machine flew outwards. It had sufficient force to leave a cracked depression containing bits of his skull and brain matter on the far wall of the chamber. Alicia Cortez survived the destruction of the oculus and was staring in awe at the magnificent creature that had appeared before her; the subtle rainbow-like iridescence that shot down the dragon’s back and across scales the size of her head as light moved across its body. The timber sized hind legs and feet tipped with razor sharp talons, the blue black spiked scales that stood up along the length of its back and down its tail. She stood frozen in place, enthralled, as the barb-tipped tail swept towards her, casting her aside and cutting her messily in half.

Eliana was spared death from the flying debris by one of the dragon’s wings. The thin but powerful membrane thrust the restraint chair away from the fallout and against the far wall where it toppled to its side. The leads connecting her to the computer towers and the oculus were severed, some violently yanked from their connectors. Blood wept in fine trickles from around the ports surgically implanted in her spine.

The dragon craned back its head, lifted both wings as far as possible in that confined space, and roared. The sound deafened the still standing Jefferson and those watching in shock through the thick glass in the control room.

No one moved, uncertain in their astonishment as to just what to do.

The creature lowered its head and examined the chamber. Wide set, muddy yellow eyes seized upon Richard lying motionless on the floor. Spiked scales on the dragon’s throat puffed out beardlike and the crest at its head rose as it spied the thief. Its head dipped towards the floor, lips peeling back to reveal leg sized teeth as the beast inhaled his body odor.

Richard was motionless but not unconscious. His body, beyond the healing effect of the sanctuary Earth, was once again wracked with pain. From his head to his broken ribs and punctured lung, his nervous system cried out a discordant symphony of agony from the beating and gunshot he’d sustained on E-514. Still he felt the dragon’s breath caress him, smelled the hot and rancid odor of death as it washed over him.

He was saddened by what he’d done to the creature. Felt remorse for the loss of her offspring. Though monstrous and brutal by nature, she was an innocent party in all this. Richard regretted that he’d used her and her natural destructiveness to carry out his scheme.

Eralah, too, had had misgivings about the plan but had gone along with it. Had shown the creature her true form, both frightening and startling the magnificent beast long enough for Richard to Rip into her nest and steal one of the three eggs incubating there. The dragon had reacted with predictable fury, following Richard as he conjured another Rip and fled through it, the dragon hot on his heels.

Her quarry now vulnerable before her, the dragon opened her massive jaws and would have gobbled Richard up whole had Jefferson not chosen that moment to open fire.

Jefferson emptied the clip of the Desert Eagle into the dragon’s head. The five remaining rounds spanged harmlessly off the dragon’s armor-like scales like popcorn kernels bouncing off the inside of a pan before ricocheting around the chamber. One crashed into the observation window, cracking the thick glass and startling those inside. Another ploughed into the body of the already dead med tech.

The dragon’s black head turned swiftly on its long neck and urine colored eyes tinged with dark fury set upon Jefferson. She sized him up, noting little of interest until she spied the broken egg lying at his feet. Her head craned sideways, doglike. Her eyes locked dangerously onto Jefferson’s.

“Fuck me,” Jefferson muttered, only now realizing the importance of the egg and Richard’s last comment.

In one swift serpent-like move, the dragon seized Alex Jefferson around the midsection and tossed him up towards the ceiling of the chamber. He screamed as razor sharp incisors sliced through the soft tissues of his stomach, cutting cleanly through abdominal muscle. Blood gushed in freshets as his intestines spilled out. Like a dog playing with a ball, the dragon caught the dangling intestines as Jefferson fell towards the floor and thrust him into the air again. Jefferson issued a blood curdling, inhuman scream as new pain exploded in his viscera. As he dropped the second time the creature caught him around the head and shoulders with her molars. She bit down, crushing his upper body and skull like a crème-filled hard candy, then spat out Jefferson’s remains as if finding the taste not to her liking.

As the dragon bent and nuzzled the broken egg on the blood-stained floor, issuing an odd, incongruous cooing sound much like the heartbroken sob of a woman, three black clad BanaTech security officers stormed the chamber. Seeing the carnage in the chamber, and what was responsible for it, one immediately stopped, muttered “Oh hell no,” and reversed course, nearly bowling over the Elder, making his way through the portal and into the chamber. The other two began pouring fire from their standard issue M-4 carbines into the dragon’s head and flank.

The dragon turned to confront her new adversaries. Striking out with blinding speed she seized the nearest officer in one foreleg and squeezed. The sudden pressure forced his entrails out through his mouth and anus simultaneously. She cast the bloody remains aside and swept her wing at the second, nearly decapitating the Elder, who, ignoring the carnage around him, was making his way to where Richard lay on the floor in a ball, his hands sensibly covering his head.

Undeterred by the gruesome death of his counterpart, the BanaTech officer continued to pour fire from the M-4 into the dragon’s head and neck as the wing caught him just above the midsection, crushing his spine and internal organs. He flew backwards into the observation window and slid down the glass still trying to fire on the creature with a now empty magazine.

The dragon lunged forward, snapping at the fallen officer with her massive incisors. The horn set directly above her nostrils slammed into the observation window, shattering it and showering the control room in a hail of glass. Angela Martin, curiously calm for a woman who’d been on the verge of hysteria only minutes before, recognized the danger and survived the flying glass by diving into the kneehole below her console. John Waller wasn’t so fortunate. He began screaming as a four inch dagger-like shard of glass pierced his left eye. Blood and the burst eyeball slid down his cheek as he wrenched at the shard, trying to pull it free from his eye socket.

The dragon lifted her head at the sound; peered curiously through the remains of the window at the man inside, staggering in circles, bumping into chairs and consoles and nearly tripping over Sophia Bledell’s body. She snorted hot breath through her nostrils. Waller stopped, finally managed to trip over one of Sophia’s outstretched legs, and went down hard on his tail. He looked up at the visage of death staring in at him.

“Mommeee…” Waller wailed as the dragon lunged forward, her head and neck smashing through the remains of the window and the wall that supported it. She seized Waller in her incisors and swallowed him whole.

As BanaTech technicians ran past the open doorway beyond, screaming in confusion and terror, the dragon pushed further into the room, crushing the hapless Angela Martin beneath her bulk and trodding on the fallen security officer as she did so. Large sections of the chamber walls and the ceiling of the control room gave way as unstoppable force met immovable object. Wood, metal, ceramic, and drywall pattered down the dragon’s back and fell to the floor as she sought open spaces beyond.

As the chamber and control room fell to ruin in her wake, another security officer took up position in the doorway and began pouring fire into the dragon’s face. A single round found its way up one nostril and lodged in the sensitive tissues of the nasal cavity beyond.

The dragon recoiled in surprise and pain, her tail swiping out behind her, narrowly missing the Elder, who’d been thrown to the floor when the chamber wall had collapsed. He was crawling now, and whimpering; but his course was set on Richard Farris—he would kill the interfering bastard for destroying his glorious plans and unleashing this hellish beast upon them. Strangle him with his bare hands, if necessary.

The security officer grunted in satisfaction as the dragon snorted and shook her head, bringing down more of the ceiling and the chamber wall as she tried to dislodge the 5.56 x 45mm round from her sinus cavity.

So the big bitch can be hurt after all, he thought. He turned to call other officers to his side—most of the technicians were fleeing in horror, screaming in panic and confusion, but the security force, made of heartier stuff, was responding en masse to the alarms braying throughout the facility—and missed the dragon narrowing her eyes as a thick protective membrane slid sideways across them. The beast inhaled greatly, her abdomen swelling as she took in oxygen. The security officer looked back at the sudden intake of breath and was immolated as the dragon let loose a stream of fire that rapidly burned through the back wall of the control room and incinerated the four security officers who were responding to the call of the first. Fire rushed down the corridors beyond, reducing those in its path to glowing embers. The dragon reared up again, her head smashing through the remains of the ceiling and into the level above. Seeking freedom, she bellowed out her rage and began to climb.

Brother, Ashmedai said, why must it always be this way?

Shortly after Jefferson’s gruesome but extremely satisfying demise the Infernal had enveloped Richard. Pushed its way into his body and mind and began communing with him. The revulsion Richard felt at the intrusion—like the pus soaked wrappings of an infectious wound being shoved into his mouth—had pushed back his pain and cleared his thoughts.

As the dragon began her rampage he struggled with the Infernal, tried to push it out and away from him. But its power had grown since the convergence began; was still growing as the Focal Point remained open, spreading outwards throughout the Rips and polluting the Source with its dark, artificial nature. In his weakened state, Richard had neither the will nor the strength to fight off the creature’s onslaught.

Don’t call me brother, Richard thought. My Father is the ALL. You’ve given yourself over to Him.

The Infernal chuckled at this.

Do you dare not even speak His name, little Michael? The first among us to challenge the ALL? Very well. I will. Your precious Father is gone. Departed for reasons unknown to points unimaginable. The ALL has fled, probably to wither and die in some dark corner of the cosmos. Lucifer is our Father now. We all belong to him. And this realm shall be remade in His image.

Lucifer’s only desire is the destruction of humanity, Richard retorted.

Not true, Ashmedai protested. Despite its source, Richard could feel sincerity in the statement. We need humanity. As each of them is born, the Source is reborn with them. They each carry the power of the ALL within their souls. We need this power to sustain ourselves. Without it we would all perish.

So Lucifer’s plan is to…harvest them?

Of course, Ashmedai answered. And why not? They are insignificant pests, easily coerced and manipulated. Brother Gabriel has led you astray. Once the convergence is complete, we will gain the power of the lost souls and regain our rightful place in the Kingdom. We will not destroy humanity, as Gabriel thought. Rather, we will restore the Multi-verse, much as it is now, and the humans will go on living their confused and petty little lives, as unaware of us as they were of the ALL.

Except in the end, Richard thought, instead of going to what they think is their eternal reward in Heaven, they will come to you.

To be consumed, he added. And in the meantime they will toil under Lucifer’s dark reign, live lives of torment and torture at the hands of the Infernal as His darkness spreads throughout the realm, one Earth at a time, until the entire Multi-verse is under his influence.

Join us, Michael, Ashmedai said. Their suffering does not have to be your own. The one-hundred and forty-four thousand can regain their rightful place in the Kingdom and rejoice as Keepers of the Throne once again.

And serve under Lucifer’s heel? Richard thought. I think not.

Ashmedai sensed something growing within Richard; a disgusting and repellant strength, not unlike that of the light.

What are you doing? The Infernal keened, struggling to keep his hold on Richard’s mind.

Remembering, Richard answered. Remembering that there are Earths where you hold no sway. Earth’s that I think you and Lucifer would fear to tread, even with the power of humanity’s lost souls. Even, I think, with control of the entire Multi-verse. Gabriel called them sanctuary Earths and thought there were less than a handful of them. But I’m thinking there are more. Many more. Maybe as many as one-hundred and forty-four thousand.

Don’t be a fool, Ashmedai cried, besieged by the light now flowing through Richard’s body. Beset by a repellent force that steadily weakened the hold on Richard’s mind: Love. There is no corner of this realm that is hidden from Lucifer’s eye.

I think there is, Richard responded. Neither you nor Lucifer knew where Gabriel was for all those decades. And none of you even suspected that I was still alive. We were hidden on those worlds and I’m betting it was no accident. Call them Sanctuary Earth’s or better, Keeper’s Earth’s, I think the ALL left them to stand as outposts; untouchable by darkness or evil, inaccessible to the Infernal. From which to wage war against you and your Father should the rest of the Multi-verse fall.

Richard stopped struggling with Ashmedai, turned and embraced him. Love and light burst forth from within him, washed over the Infernal, and cast him away. As Richard regained consciousness in his human form he found himself standing; bleeding and wracked with pain, but steady on his feet, for now. The burst of strength he’d drawn from the Source had been enough to repel Ashmedai, injure the Infernal and send it howling from the chamber. But it had not been enough to heal his human form. He knew his strength would wane rapidly and he would ultimately succumb to his wounds.

He searched the room with his eyes for Eliana, listening to the sounds of destruction from the dragon’s ongoing rampage on the levels above. The Rip’s energy, a muddy brown now shot through with tendrils of blackish ichor, still thrummed in the center of the chamber. This was Eliana’s Rip, created with her power but corrupt with the influence of the Infernal. He could navigate it and manipulate it, but only she could shut it down. It still existed; therefore, she was still alive. Whether or not he could reach her mind was another matter.

He didn’t sense the Elder behind him until the old man wrapped his hands around his throat and began to squeeze.

Though frail and approaching his eighty-second birthday, weakened by the devastating turn events had taken, the Elder was more than a match for Richard. Thin fingers, given strength by fury at his unraveling plans, locked like talons around Richard’s neck. As Richard fought for breath, prying at the vice-like hold, pressure on the skin dislodged the thick wad of cyanoacrylate plugging the exit wound under his jaw and blood began seeping out, coating his throat and the Elder’s hands. The damage inside the wound worsened and blood ran down Richard’s trachea, slowly filling his lungs.

Richard turned in the Elder’s grasp. Fingers slick with blood did not loosen but slid across the skin, allowing Richard some small freedom of movement. Now face to face, the Elder grunted and renewed his efforts, using the heels of his palms to crush Richard’s windpipe.

Richard beat ineffectively at the old man’s arms, feebly pried at the steely fingers that were slowly crushing the life from him. As dark blossoms bloomed before his eyes and his head swam as his brain searched for oxygen, he resorted to the last option open to him. He used every ounce of energy he had left and brought his knee up into the old man’s groin.

The Elder’s eyes widened and the air whooshed out of him. His hands raced to his crotch and he folded to the floor, curling up in a ball and cradling his scrotum with his bloody hands. He whimpered piteously.

Richard gasped for air. His lungs, one already punctured by broken ribs, the other slowly filling with blood from his wounded trachea, spasmed and Richard coughed violently, vomiting a large amount of crimson onto the floor.

He struggled to his feet and looked down upon the Elder.

The old man had gained his knees, the initial pain of Richard’s blow had diminished leaving behind a deep throbbing that in turns nauseated and further angered the man. He swiped his arm out at Richard’s leg; still defiant, still trying to bring the younger man down.

“Bastard!” the old man railed. “You’ve ruined everything!” He reached out again and Richard stomped on his hand. Brittle bone snapped under Richard boot, the tread cut gashes in the thin tissue of skin. The Elder wailed and cradled his now useless hand to his chest.

Richard thought to leave him there, whimpering on the floor as the accelerator on the level below finally wound up past the point of containment and brought the entire complex, its superstructure weakened by the dragon’s berserker charge, down around the both of them. Eliana would likewise be crushed and the Rip would close; the convergence halted.

But what of the Infernal, already strong enough to once again commune with one another as Ashmedai had communed with him? Had they gained sufficient strength to act directly against man? To influence matter? To travel through the Rips?

And what of his promise to Eliana? To save her and protect her from harm?

The unanswered questions and his righteous wrath at what the Elder and his predecessors had let come to pass decided him.

He grabbed the collar of the old man’s sweatshirt—a scarlet and grey fleece with some stupid character with a buckeye for a head emblazoned upon it—and dragged him through the debris and pools of blood on the chamber floor to the still open aperture of the Rip. Finding strength deep within himself he yanked the old man erect.

“Go ahead,” the Elder said bitterly, spying the ruined brackets designed to support the oculus still set into the floor and intuiting Richard’s intentions. “Where this Rip takes me, I’ll survive. I’ll rebuild all that you have destroyed here and more. Whatever the cost; however long it takes. I or one of my Mirrors will one day stand before a working Focal Point, ready to take the Multi-verse by the throat and mold it to perfection.”

Richard simply stared at the old man, waiting.

“And you will long be dead,” the old man finished.

“Are you sure you know where this Rip leads?” Richard asked, stipules of blood spraying onto his lips and already blood-soaked chin.

Comprehension dawned in the old man’s eyes. Fear followed.

“Wait,” he cried and Richard pulled him closer to the Rip.

Richard paused.

“The Infernal gave me something to hide. Something of great power. A manuscript of some sort. I think they fear it. Fear someone such as yourself using it against them. Take me from this place now, to a safe Earth where I can contact surviving BanaTech forces, and I’ll tell you where it is.”

Richard considered the proposition for all of about two seconds before hurling the Elder, screaming, into the Rip. As he collapsed to the floor he reached out with his mind, nudging the Rip and its cargo onto a new course.

The Elder exited the Rip inside the event horizon of a supermassive black hole sixty-billion light years from Earth. As he entered the gravitational singularity, space-time curvature became infinite and time slowed to a crawl. He was both conscious and aware of what was happening to him as, over the course of thousands of years, his body would be stretched, his individual atoms torn apart at the molecular level, his very essence destroyed by the tidal forces before being crushed to infinite density. Ultimately his mass would join the total mass at the center of the black hole.

On an infinite number of Earth’s across an infinite Multi-verse, every remaining Mirror of Alex Jefferson died.

Power failed throughout the BanaTech complex. Emergency systems powered up briefly, but failed within moments. The complex was thrown into darkness. Richard lay on the floor of the Focal Point chamber, the pain of his wounds diminishing as massive blood loss shut down his nervous system. He stretched out an arm toward where he remembered seeing Eliana laying on her side, still unconscious, still strapped into the restraint chair.

There was no one there now.

The sounds of the dragon’s rampage had ceased. She’d either found a way out of the complex or been killed. Richard doubted it had been the latter. He didn’t think anything short of a M72 anti-tank weapon or an RPG7 would have brought her down.

Noises trickled down to him from above; screams of pain, cries of confusion. The patter of debris still falling to the chamber floor. All else was silent save the soft crackle of fires burning throughout the structure.

In the dark, Richard Farris smiled.

I got them, he thought. Destroyed BanaTech and all those who could rebuild it. He coughed and thick dark blood sprayed debris on the floor in front of him.

A thump came from beneath him. More rubble fell. A second thump, this one harder, louder. Then all was silent again.

That’s the accelerator breaking containment, he thought. Soon all of this will be gone; Eliana and I with it. The Rip will close and balance will be restored.

I’m sorry I failed you, Eliana, he thought, his fingers growing numb, his body cold. Sorry I couldn’t keep my promise and get you off this Ear—

Darkness enveloped Richard completely and his hand, still reaching out to the child he could not save, fell to the floor.

He did not see the shadow that fell across his body. Did not feel the small hand that fell on the small of his back.

Minutes later the ZeVatron beneath the complex overloaded. Three-hundred and ten square miles of the Australian outback, from Alice Springs to Yulara, went up in a fireball that consumed another thousand square miles in less than a minute.