Paranormals (Book 2): We Are Not Alone (47 page)

... and that’s when he saw the telltale arm gesture that Powerhouse described in his warning.

Redirecting some focus to his bare feet, he pushed himself up and back. A fleeting sensation of increasing weight washed over him, but it came and went fast. His shaky landing put him another ten yards back, outside the apparent danger zone, but that much further from Charl as well. The walrus leaned forward and gained another step toward the unmoving Taalu boy — one more, and the alien would be able to stomp
on
Charl.

Not on my watch, dumbass!

Mark laid his shockwaves on stronger than ever, the spreading blood in his left eye the only outward indication of what it was costing him ...

PCA

Powerhouse had Della on her feet now; he tried to pull her arm over his shoulder, but their height difference made that difficult.

“Shockwave’s in trouble,” Vortex said, limping a few steps in that direction. “I’ll see if I can get Charl clear—”

“No!” Powerhouse insisted. “You can’t get that close to it.”

“Listen, I can’t help Della — she’s still too heavy for me. Until the gravity attack wears off, you’re the only one here strong enough.”

“Then how will you move Charl?”

That made Vortex hesitate. “And the wasp and triclops won’t be long.
And
 we have to make sure they don’t do an end run around us and hit the Taalu ships. Damn it ...”

Della said something in Taalu, forcing her hand up to point, but she wasn’t pointing at Charl or toward the other Noctoponm.

Powerhouse sighed in relief. “The Lieutenant’s here. Maybe he’ll have an idea.”

“Yeah, but what took him so long? And who the hell is that with him?”

Takayasu and an attractive, dark-hued woman were running their way, both winded but in good enough shape to keep up a steady pace. The brunette, wearing simple jeans, T-shirt, and windbreaker, looked familiar to Vortex, but he couldn’t place her.

“Guys ...” Takayasu called in greeting as they got close enough. He and the brunette took a second to catch their breath, then he said to Lincoln, “Powerhouse, I come bearing gifts ...”

PCA

Shockwave’s head felt like it was ready to split in two by the time the walrus shifted on him. For the few minutes they’d been in this unstoppable-force/immovable-object competition, the bulky alien had been leaning forward into his shockwaves, striving to gain the final ground on Shining Star’s brother. Now the walrus twisted around, putting its stumpy shoulder against the shockwave. But why? Why was it doing that?

It spat. Its acid fluttered in the pseudo-wind of Shockwave’s attack, but it came damn close to splattering onto Charl’s head!

“Stop!” Shockwave yelled, like he was shaming a bad dog. “No! Stop that!”

The walrus ignored him, working its mouth for another try.

Shockwave didn’t know what to do. He was already pouring on as much as he could, so upping the ante to keep the acid back wasn’t an option. He didn’t have any choice — he was going to have to get closer again ... which he was pretty sure was what the son of a bitch wanted.

“Shockwave,” he heard, “get ready to stand down.”

Turning his throbbing head, he saw Powerhouse and a hot chick approaching.

“You took your sweet time— Wait a minute, is that—?”

“Backup,” Powerhouse said, a devilish smile matching the one now growing on Mark’s face. “Specialized backup. You be sure to thank your partner for this.” He asked the woman, “You ready?”

The woman’s brown eyes were a little buggy as she took in the lamprey-faced walrus, but she nodded.

Moving forward while giving a wide berth to Shockwave’s kinetic attack, Powerhouse called out, “Hey!” He clapped his hands a few times. “Remember me?!”

The walrus rolled its head toward the new voice, blabbering something guttural upon seeing Powerhouse.

“I’m ready for Round Three, you ugly motherfu—!”

Bellowing in rage, the walrus twisted around, almost losing its balance under the pressure of Shockwave’s attack, and raised its flabby arms toward Powerhouse. More importantly, it had turned away from Charl.

Powerhouse readied himself for the oncoming assault and yelled, “Now, Density!”

The brunette, Density, who had crouched near Shockwave as Powerhouse challenged the beast, placed her hands upon the ground before her and closed her eyes.

Powerhouse’s march slowed when his body weight increased by several hundred times, but he kept moving. And this time, the ground did not collapse or crumble beneath his weighty feet.

Judging by the erratic movement of its eye-orbs, the walrus must have known something was wrong. But how could it have suspected that Density had increased the solidity of the earth around them until it was as hard as diamond?

“Shockwave!” Powerhouse grunted as loud as he could. “Cease fire!” Leaning forward, letting his great weight build some momentum, Powerhouse picked up speed as he pushed toward the walrus. The creature retreated, but its shuffling feet weren’t fast enough. It spat acid at him, striking him upon the already irritated flesh of his chest. He ignored it.

At the last moment, Powerhouse put everything he had into a leap, straining his paranormal leg muscles like never before. In defiance of all probability, he left the ground, leaving cracked impressions in spite of Density’s augmentation.

The bulky Noctoponm’s lamprey mouth split wide as it screeched in horror. It was music to Lincoln’s ears.

“This is for
Greg Pendler
!”

Powerhouse’s interlocked hands crashed down upon the alien’s head, a double-fisted blow delivered by a superhumanly strong man who now weighed nearly one hundred tons.

Something cracked in the walrus’ thick neck. A rush of air exploded from the alien’s mouth as it collapsed in on itself; acid spurting from its puckered lips, some dripping down onto its own ample belly while the rest sputtered to the hardened ground. The thick, elephant-like hide rumpled and bulged as the creature deflated, worsening when Powerhouse collided with it.

The walrus fell over backward with Powerhouse on top. The tremendous impact echoed throughout the Montana mountains.

PCA

Powerhouse lay still atop his enemy, stealing a moment to recover before undertaking the arduous task of standing up under his great weight. He had not come through this unscathed — his wrists had broken when his fists connected with the walrus’ head ... but it was totally worth it.

A moment later, he heard footsteps approaching. They didn’t sound like they belonged to a colossus or an insect, so he turned his heavy head slowly.

“Okay, it’s official,” said Shockwave as he, Takayasu, Vortex, and the beautiful, wonderful, amazing Density, whom Lincoln planned to kiss when this was over, joined him. “I’m startin’ to like you after all.”

“Guys,” Takayasu said, “I hate to rain on the victory parade, but ...”

Buzzing and rumbling their respective rage, the wasp and triclops returned to the battleground, stinger and wrist-blades ready to strike.

“Oh, my God ...” Density whispered, her voice trembling. She turned to Takayasu and said, not at all joking, “Next time, tell me what I’ll be up against, you asshole.”

Vortex reacted first, firing a widespread repellant wave to slow them down. The wasp’s flight was knocked askew, corkscrewing off sideways; the triclops’ stride turned slipshod, but it leaned into the vortex and kept coming. Shockwave knelt and fired low, striking the behemoth in the shins. Vortex cut off his attack, and the triclops toppled forward headfirst, sliding several yards on its face.

Powerhouse tried to push himself up onto his forearms, thinking that if he could just fall on top of the triclops while it was down, he might stop another Noctoponm. But the added weight left him too sluggish, and the triclops was already rising. A volley of Vortex’s lasers struck its armored crown to no avail.

Instead of getting all the way up, the triclops rose to its knees and jammed its wrist-blade into the ground — the hardened soil protested audibly, but it wasn’t dense enough to resist the penetration. The ground buckled under them until Shockwave countered the move, drawing another roar of anger and frustration from the beast. It doubled its efforts, and Shockwave stayed with it — Mark didn’t know how much longer he had before passing out (or blowing a gasket upstairs and dropping dead) — while Vortex tried his lasers again, this time concentrating at the point where the triclops’ blade disappeared into its right wrist.

PCA

Takayasu, deciding they should get out of the big guns’ way, motioned for Density to follow him as he headed over to check on Charl.

“Oh!” Density gasped, her hands covering her mouth. “Is that blood?”

Takayasu, like the others, had assumed Charl remained down because he was trapped under the walrus’ gravity attack, but now he saw that might not be the case. Charl was lying on his belly, his face turned away from them, with a pool of darkened ground around his torso.

“Okay,” he said as he knelt next to the Taalu boy. “Here’s what we’re going—”

In that instant, Takayasu’s gut instincts, that inner part of him that sometimes reared its head, screamed at him that
Danger!
was behind him. He spun on one knee, his stun gun ready, for all the good it might do.

The wasp exploded from the darkness, its stinger tucked under to spear him through. Takayasu threw himself backward, flattening Density, who squealed in surprise. The stinger came close enough to drag against the front of his trench coat, ripping away his PCA badge. Lying on his back, still atop Density and Charl’s legs, Takayasu fired his V9 at the retreating wasp; it accomplished very little, but it felt better than doing nothing.

PCA

The triclops, which had been growling at Shockwave as it tried to win their earthquake contest, suddenly barked a cry of pain. It jerked its right hand out of the ground, away from Vortex’s laser, which had finally penetrated its stone skin. This left only one wrist-blade in the solidified soil — Shockwave’s counter attack was suddenly the only force at play, and the ground around them crumpled inward. Thanks to Density’s alteration, it wasn’t enough to create an especially large pit, but Shockwave, Vortex, and the triclops were all pitched forward together into the depression.

Caught with its left blade stuck in the ground at an awkward angle, the triclops fumbled to spear Vortex with its wounded blade, but the superhero rolled out of the way. Unfortunately, this brought Vortex within range of its lesser arms, one of which grabbed him by the ankle; he kicked to free himself, but it was a futile effort, and the right blade was swinging around again.

Shockwave lunged toward them, but he didn’t see how he could fire a kinetic wave without catching Vortex in the crossfire.

Time to improvise.

Shockwave drew back his right arm as though he intended to punch the triclops’ hand holding Vortex’s boot. He fired off a kinetic wave, but instead of sending it outward, he generated it along the thumb-side of his hand and willed it to
loop
around, sliding across his knuckles and wrapping back into the outer side of his clenched fist. That energy washed through his skin, along his bones — that part hurt like hell! — only to reemerge from the thumb-side again, over and over, faster and faster, in an ongoing circuit that built in strength and speed.

All of this occurred in the single second it took for him to connect with the wrist of the triclops’ lesser arm, and by that time, the shockwave was cycling so fast, he might as well have struck the blow while holding a radial saw of pure kinetic energy. It sounded like it, too, as the shockwave and the triclops’ stony skin
screamed
upon contact. The triclops bellowed in pain, jerking away from the assault and, as Shockwave had hoped, releasing Vortex in the process.

Vortex seized the opportunity to hit the triclops with a repellant attack. The triclops was pushed over onto its back, its left blade wrenching free from the hardened ground as it fell against the far side of the depression they were fighting within.

Shockwave cried, “Let’s finish this bastard!”

Unfortunately, the triclops was in pain but not delirious. It kicked out with its massive legs, catching each human full in the chest, its huge feet covering them from sternum to hips, shoving them both up and out of the depression. The only thing that saved them from crushed chests, squashed organs, and shattered pelvises was the micro-chainmail they both wore — still, when they landed almost side by side, they were each struggling to regain the breath that had abandoned them. Shockwave then stopped moving as he lost consciousness, leaving only Vortex to see the triclops, cradling its injured lesser arm, climbing out of the cavity.

Vortex tried to take a shot, any shot, at the triclops as it clambered to level ground, but all his energy reserves were long depleted, and at that moment, he lacked the vigor for a laser or vortex of any consequence — a few extra seconds might make the difference as his eyes recharged, but it didn’t look like he was going to get them. And to top it off, he could hear the wasp buzzing around somewhere nearby. He tried to get up, but a rush of vertigo thwarted his efforts. Helpless to do anything else, he lulled his head around, seeking any backup that might be coming.

Takayasu and Density were the only two left on their feet, and they were crouched over Charl’s still body as the wasp circled around them. Powerhouse was trying to get up, but something was wrong with his hands, making it a grueling task. And Shockwave was out cold here beside him.

Well ... at least Lincoln got Lamprey Face ...

Vortex pulled his head back around. The triclops was almost on them now, and Steve readied himself for one last act of defiance. If he was going to die, he wanted to at least take out one of those three eyes — hell, maybe he’d get all of them. Zap, zap, zap! It was a pleasing fantasy—

The triclops suddenly jerked his gaze away from his intended victims, looking up into the sky beyond them. Its lips peeled back in a snarl, prompting Vortex to twist around so that he could see.