Tesser: A Dragon Among Us (A Reemergence Novel) (47 page)

In the back of his head where he hid away his fears, doubts, and the memories he never wanted to visit again, there was a dark stirring. There were voices.

"You'll never amount to shit, Hank," Spoon's dad told him once from the recesses of his mind. Spoon could hear his voice in his ears as clear as day, almost as if he were in the room with them, telling him again. The judgment was palpable, and Spoon felt small.

I don't have to take this.
He fought back. "Fuck off, Dad. Worthless drunk. You died years ago. I made my peace with you. I need to get my shit together right now or my friends are gonna die," Spoon said. No one seemed to hear him. Abe and Mr. Doyle were faced forward, staring at the monsters
. Is time even moving right now?
 

"Why weren't you laying down more cover fire?" Spoon's fire team leader asked him harshly, pointing a finger at him. Spoon could feel the familiar, crusty, sweaty fatigues rubbing against his skin, and could feel the weight of his US Army-issued body armor and helmet again. He could taste the dust of Afghanistan on his tongue. His heart raced. He could see two worlds overlapping, intermingling.

"I was. I… What are you talking about, Sarge? I was…" Spoon's mind struggled to realize he was hallucinating. He could hear the hammer beat of a Browning fifty laying down suppressing fire in the background, but he knew there was none. He was in Massachusetts, in the bowels of the basement from Hell. It was actually a worse place than a firefight in Shah-i-Kot valley.

"You're gonna catch a court martial, you lazy, Irish fuck. I told them about you. Worthless piece of Yankee shit. You can't trust no one from the North!" The Sergeant hollered in his ear. It seemed like his Tennessee accent grew stronger as he got angrier at Spoon. The Sergeant was spitting in fury.

With no regard for sense, Spoon stepped back and raised his weapon, pointing it at the NCO in his mind. He slipped his finger down and rubbed it against the trigger, ready to end the Sergeant's tirade. In his mind, he saw the gravel-voiced, dirty-faced soldier of the 101
^st
look back at him in shock, but a small piece of rationality appeared and he saw Abe's face instead.

What the fuck am I doing?

"You are about to shoot your friend in the face," a soft feminine voice said over the din of two battles, one real, one false. Her voice was like a calm falling on him, as if a soft snow had settled on him, quieting the world.

"Who are you? Why are you in my head?" Spoon asked two realities, his finger coming off the trigger.

"I'm the big purple dragon in front of you, Henry, and if you don't listen to my voice, you're going to shoot your friend and then be killed by Legion. There won't be enough left of you and your friends to have a funeral. You must listen and listen hard."

For some reason, I trust her.
"What do I do?"

"Look up. Not with your mind, but with your eyes, the ones you haven't blinked with, the eyes that feel dry. Focus on that dryness. Feel the reality."

Jesus, she's right.
Spoon felt the scratchy surface of his eyeballs and blinked. Each time his lids opened, the view changed. Afghanistan. Massachusetts. A dirty, gunpowder-soaked battlefield on the side of a cold mountain. A subterranean lair filled with nightmares. A half dozen blinks and his eyes locked into the real world. He was looking down at Abe, frozen, cowering and confused as Spoon pointed his weapon at him. Just to Spoon's left Mr. Doyle was calmly shooting his 1911 out of the doorway at the giant spider monster, oblivious to what was happening just behind him.

"Spoon, what the fuck are you doing?" Abe asked loudly, his voice shaking.
He has another one of those magic sticks in his hand. One word and I'd have been killed.

"I don't know. Something came over me. A… darkness. Hallucinations. I saw and heard my father, and then my Sergeant yelling at me, and I was about to shoot him, but then it was you, and then I heard… Kaula. Kaula, are you still there?"

She was gone.

"Spoon, you're fucking crazy. Shoot the monsters, not your friends. And Kaula's asleep man. She's right fucking there. Get yourself together. Fight against it. Use your will, not just your trigger finger." Abe stood, suddenly brave and wise. He wore it well. He turned and pointed out the door at the spider monster that was stalking towards them, each spiked foot hitting the floor oddly making the same sound of an aluminum bat smacking into a phone pole. "Telum!" he shouted out, and the same wave of force burst from his fingertips. It might've even been more powerful. The wooden missile screamed out over the shoulder of the elder wizard and struck the spider's foremost leg at a joint, bursting it from the main body and hitting the floor like a side of beef. The spider body reeled in pain, but it pressed forward.

"Good on you, Abraham!" Mr. Doyle yelled, a huge grin on his face. He swapped the magazine in his pistol.

Spoon's mind snapped back into action. We're buttonholed up in this entranceway, and that spider is going to kill us. The soldier's brain worked overtime now, taking in the entire scene. Tesser was locked in a three-pronged battle in the center of the room near Kaula's body.

The worm thing with a hundred baby arms was trying to pin Tesser's half dragon-half giant body down with its massive girth. Teeth snapped shut on the air as it tried to bite the dragon. The thing was ten feet long, and it must've weighed two thousand pounds. Tesser had one long arm outstretched with a claw at its neck, holding it at bay. His right claw was slashing like a flurry of broadswords, ripping the flesh of the dragon clone straight from the bone. The monster cackled madly as its dark blood flew through the air. Tesser paused his slashing and spat out a rope of white-hot flame into the face of a creature that looked like a bear mixed with a toxic, orange octopus. The creature erupted into flames and staggered back wildly, trying to extinguish the most powerful fire in all of existence. It was engulfed though, and on the floor in a moment, dissolving under the intensity of the fire. More lumbering monsters in a myriad of shapes were closing in on him. Nearby, Kaula sat impassive, drugged, and still.

He's holding his own for now, but he's going to need help fast.
Spoon looked at the massive arachnid marching at them and a plan formed in his head. They couldn't help the dragon until the spider was dead.

"Blind it! Shoot it in the fucking eyeballs!" Spoon yelled, and all three men lifted their weapons and fired. Spoon's M4 dumped the entire magazine before Doyle and Abe emptied their guns.
Hooray for a high cyclic rate.
Spoon was on the move, dropping the empty mag and slapping in a new one. He aimed and dumped that magazine straight into what passed for the face of the giant spider. It screeched in pain.

We're hurting it.

Spoon changed mags again, moving fast. The monster was halted, and when it hesitated, Spoon took three steps at it and ripped another long burst at one of the thing's hind legs, severing it completely, letting out a flash flood of viscous yellow-white gore. The creature staggered, losing its balance for a moment. Spoon twisted and dumped another fifteen rounds into the leg nearest to him, blasting it free from the body. The creature's enormous weight bogged down the five remaining legs, and it swayed, barely staying up.

From the hall Mr. Doyle stepped out and produced a small leather bag from his belt of tricks. He sheathed his pistol as Spoon reloaded, and with both hands threw the contents of the bag at the daemon spider. Tiny shards of metal spilled out, and just before they were about to hit the floor impotently, Mr. Doyle spoke a single calm phrase.

"Crescat, et fuge." The shards of metal leapt out, launched from the floor they were headed to and sprayed at the spider. They grew in size until they were the size of gleaming steel machetes spinning with the ferocity of a chainsaw.
 
The whirling blades bit into the white carapace and flesh of the swollen misshaped spider, tearing large pieces free and sending more thick, pus-like blood than could be imagined all about. The floor was slick with it now.

"Fuck yes!" Spoon screamed as his bolt returned forward, chambering a fresh round. He put a tight grouping into another leg of the spider and finally it went down. It hit the floor like the body of a massive alien steer and made a whining, whimpering noise that reminded Spoon of a hundred dying babies screaming in unison.

Abe limped out of the hall into the massive room and shut the cylinder of his Enfield. Without fear, he stepped up to the face of the monster, just out of the reach of its spasming fangs. He pointed the gun at the center of the beast and squeezed the trigger until his gun stopped firing. Gray jets of foulness shot into the air from where his heavy enchanted bullets struck, and when the gun clicked empty, he wiped the filth from his face and spat.

"Eat my ass," Abe said.

The monster exploded.

All three men were tossed backwards through the air as if a massive landmine had been stepped on. Spoon landed on a desk, then slid over it and hit the floor on his shoulder. His collarbone strained and nearly cracked under his own weight. A sharp jab of pain hit him at his shoulder joint, but the bones stayed where they belonged. Mostly.
Fuck that hurt.

Spoon was up quickly and took in the scene, wincing in pain. Mr. Doyle had gotten lucky. He'd been tossed clear back towards the relative safety of the door they'd come through. Nothing had stopped his flight path, so he'd landed on the floor and skidded along, relatively safely.
He'll be back in the fight in a minute. Just need to help Tesser buy some time and hold on.

Abe had hit a desk the same as Spoon, but instead of landing atop it, he'd hit the front of it, back first. He was slumped sitting on the floor, face on his chest, red blood running down his neck from a wound on the back of his head.
Shit. He's done. Might be dead. Goddamn it.

Tesser was still at perilous war with the creature surrounding him. He'd ripped the face off of the worm. All of the faces. Spoon did a quick count of the daemons still remaining and got to five before Tesser was attacked by a new thing. It was ropy, and other than the fleshy bag of a torso it dragged on the floor behind it, it was made entirely of tentacles covered in fishhook barbs. As Tesser stood toe-to-toe with the false dragon creature that mimicked him, the octopus daemon launched itself at his back. Too many tendrils to count wrapped around and up over the dragon's torso, the barbs digging into the scales with alarming effectiveness.
 
Tesser roared in pain as his arms were lashed with the ripping tentacles, immobilizing him.

I can't get a shot. I can't get a fucking shot. Shit shit shit.

"Tesser shift! Go big!" Spoon screamed.

"I can't!" He roared. There was confusion in his voice. Something very wrong was happening to him.

Tesser's arms were ripped wide, spread like he was about to be crucified. The dragon shaped daemon roared in delight, mocking Tesser and spreading his arms as well. "I may not be able to kill you, but you shall suffer, dragon! No sleep for you this time! Just pain. Eternal pain!"

Out of the fleshy knot at the center of the tentacle creature another massive appendage appeared. It rose high into the air and was tipped with a clear spike.
That looks like a fang.
As Spoon watched, a green fluid pushed towards the tip of the tentacle fang, and it reared back to stab Tesser in his exposed throat.

He's a goner if that hits.

 
"Does this bring back any memories dragon? So much like the last time you challenged me. You never learn, dragon," the daemonic dragon taunted.

Without thinking Spoon raised his weapon exhaled softly and calmly shot the fang off the tentacle. It burst in a halo of wet acidity, and the slimy appendage writhed in agony, flinging more of the green fluid around the room. Wherever it hit a hissing sound came, followed shortly by smoke, and the smell of burning. Tesser tried to recoil from the eruption, but he was held firm. He wound up being sprayed by the acid and many of the scales on his face and chest began to melt away, leaving raw pink flesh exposed. He roared in pain.

The white daemon looked beyond Tesser and saw Spoon standing there, holding his weapon. The thing was enraged. "KILL THEM!" the dragon mockery bellowed. Three of the monsters turned their attention from encircling Tesser and started towards Spoon.
 

I've only got five magazines left. I don't think that'll be enough to kill all these daemons.

From the corner of his eye Spoon saw Mr. Doyle appear. He had drawn his longsword from his hip again. Much like the gem-encrusted scabbard that held the weapon, the sword was similarly bedecked in ornamentation. Of course, you could hardly see it through the blue arcs of electricity running up and down the blade now. The blade was now charged with the power of a lightning bolt. With a joyful whoop, Mr. Doyle brought the blade down in a slash that completely split a daemon monster in half. A sound like the crash of thunder filled the room, and bruised Spoon's eardrum. One side of the monster, the one that looked like snakes fell to the floor wetly, snapping its limb-serpents around while the other side, the one that looked like a piranha flopped down, instantly dead. There was no explosion, just Mr. Doyle's celebration. He spun the sword around his body like Conan, arcs of electricity creating a dangerous halo around his body.

"Not just yet, daemon. You've yet to hear my voice in the matter, and I love a good conversation. Shall we debate the merits of you going and fucking yourself?" Mr. Doyle asked the thing absurdly.
 

Two insane creatures closed in on Mr. Doyle, both the size of refrigerators.
 
One had pincers on each of its four arms large enough to pick up and rend a steel drum. Behind them, Tesser was still screaming in pain and the creature with the tentacles had grown another tail with a stinger.

I hope that sword doesn't run out of ammunition because things do not look good.