The Veil (43 page)

What the hell?

The colossal beast had reared right up onto her hind legs, sending water cascading down from her exposed body. Seven of her nine heads were stretched up vertically like taught rope, and the other two were dipped down into the sea. As I watched, I saw that her chest had started to physically swell, as if she were being pumped full of air.

“Del!” I shouted.

“Yeah?” he replied, spinning out the way of a claw attack and making his floating guns unload a quick succession of bullets into an offspring.

“What is the queen doing?”

He turned and then swore loudly. He cupped his hands around his mouth, letting the guns clatter to the floor. “The queen is going to attack! Everyone get behind cover,
now!”

The nearby Vengeful and several Lightwardens followed his advice immediately, dipping down behind turrets, staircases and containers. But several more were too deep in the battle to hear – either that or they weren’t interested in following the commands of a Guardian over their captain.

“Oh goddamn it!” swore Delagio. “Fools are gonna get themselves killed.”

“Listen to him!” I yelled at those who were still exposed, shooting and slicing at the Hydra offspring.

Delagio grabbed me and yanked me down behind the container. Hollie and Danny were already there, breathing deeply and waiting.

“We can’t worry about them now,” he breathed, his eyes wide and intense. “Wrap yourselves in the nettin’ as tight as y’all can.”

It’s almost like he’s battled a Hydra before. But surely it isn’t the sort of thing you survive and then don’t tell people about?

Delagio pushed his own hands and feet through the holes, wrapping the material tightly in his palms.

“What’s about to happen?” I breathed, scrambling with Danny and Hollie to weave myself into the netting.

Del peered around the corner and then ducked back, pressing his head against the container and closing his eyes. “That bitch is about to go all fire hose on our ass.”

A second later I heard the splash as the two heads rose out of the water. There was a crackle and Captain Garrat’s voice poured though the speakers. “Everyone get behind cover or inside the ship,
now
!”

But it was too late.

There was a furious rushing sound like an approaching tsunami and then a jet of dark water the circumference of a Boeing engine tore past us, smashing into the nearby wall so hard it almost tore right through. The furious Hydra Queen fired more devastating streams of water down onto the deck of I’orin. The Lightwardens who hadn’t listened to our warnings tumbled past in contorted balls of fractured limbs, gurgling and screaming as they were punched over the side of the warship or slammed into the walls hard enough that their bones were reduced to gravel. The container behind us groaned as it was hit by one of the jets and the netting securing it to the deck started to ping loose.

Crap, crap.

The water levels rose around us, coming up to our ankles and then our shins, as the unrelenting Hydra Queen kept blasting the ship with water. More of the container’s fixings snapped, and the unit slid forward a few feet, bulging against the net and pushing us with it. 

“We could do with über Alex right about now!” shouted Delagio, his forehead damp with a mixture of water and sweat.

“I’m still weak from the battle on the city!”

He gestured at the rising water. “I get that bud, but look around you! You don’t switch in, we all clock out!”

He’s right. I have to do something. If I don’t we’re all dead and Gabriella, Grey and then Troy are as good as dead too.

I stared down at my blade dripping with water as dark as ink, and I forced my breathing to slow and tried to clear my mind, thinking of what was at stake as I willed the other part of me to rise to the surface.

I switched. 

Delagio looked at me and then nodded. “There he is.”

“Stay here,” I commanded.

Jumping to my feet, I burst from behind the container and started to sprint the length of the deck towards the Hydra Queen. Everything around me ground into slow motion – the panicked faces of the Lightwardens who leaned out from cover, firing whatever they could at the colossal beast; the unreadable expressions of the Vengeful who were clustered behind cover in tight groups, waiting for their next command; the deep water splashing up around my boots as I carved through it as though it didn’t exist; the nine unimaginably powerful streams of pure water spewing from the nine maws of the nightmarish creature. Everything slowed until it froze entirely, becoming a snapshot suspended in time, whilst I slipped through the image like a spectre.

I weaved past the jets of water and hopped onto the side of the ship, sprinting forward with my sword hand trailing behind and my teeth gritted together in determination. The Hydra Queen towered over me – a living, breathing skyscraper. I waited until I was right in front of the claw clutching I’orin’s bow and then jumped up as high as I could, raising Crimson above my head. I thrust the blade down and it sank deep into her forearm. The momentum of my jump made me slam into her scales, which were formed from countless overlapping plates that resembled polished black shields.

I’d thought that the Hydra Queen would have barely registered Crimson. In my mind it would be like a pin going into an elephant. So I was surprised when my perception of time rebalanced itself – as it always did after the initial switch – and the creature had reared backwards, releasing piercing sounds from her nine mouths that could only have been screams.

A giant claw with three fingers missing bore down on me. I pressed my feet against the Hydra’s arm and jumped, stabbing the blade out again and coming to rest fifty feet higher up. The seismic aftermath of the queen swatting her own arm was powerful enough that I almost lost my grip on Crimson. Steadying myself, I continued to vault up the massive creature – alternating between jumping and stabbing out with Crimson. All the while I avoided the frantic, thundering slaps that the screaming Hydra Queen threw in my direction.

Faster.

I sped up, darting up the Hydra like a jumping flea. As I landed just below the crook of her elbow, I felt a cold shadow roll over me and realised that the Hydra had anticipated my movement, swatting above instead of below. Turning my head, I saw a huge scaled palm rushing towards me like a moving wall. I coiled my legs and sprang outwards, ripping my blade free and raising it high above my head. I sailed through the air and felt the gut-pull as gravity took hold of me. I arched downwards and thrust out with Crimson, stabbing it into the wrist of the Hydra’s moving arm. Before she could react, I swung myself over the edge of her limb, running along the horizontal edge of her forearm, towards the inside elbow.

Gritting my teeth, I started to jump again, over and over, changing my position and occasionally dropping back down so the Hydra didn’t know where to attack. With each stab came a hideous screech. I had shifted my thoughts of Crimson from an insignificant pin to the toxic stinger of a wasp – which could bring immense pain to something a thousand times its size.

Eventually I reached the Hydra’s broad shoulder, where a shelf of muscle connected to the expanded base of her multiple necks. The Hydra’s heads were all curled up like cramped fingers, as she desperately tried to locate me.
Clearly Crimson’s blade has much more of an impact on her than my bodyweight does.

A moment later I turned to see a set of huge yellow eyes glaring at me.

The other heads started to curl back in, joining the head that had spotted me. The Hydra opened her collective jaws and nine holes of absolute darkness loomed in front of me, fronted by the tree-sized fangs and the waterfall of venom that spilled from them.

I sprinted outwards towards her damaged wing. A serpentine hood flared outwards on the Hydra’s centremost head and she let out an almighty hiss – the rush of foul smelling breath so powerful, it almost knocked me off my feet.  I sensed her head’s attack before they actually moved, and I dived over the side of her shoulder, stabbing Crimson into her flesh and riding it diagonally down her back like a zip line. I felt the heavy shudder as nine fangs missed me and thudded into the Hydra’s own flesh. Clearly not immune to her own venom, she was momentarily stunned, and I took the moment to gain some respite. Far below, I could see the Hydra’s impossibly long tail thrashing around in the waves.
This is harder than it should be. I’m not back to full strength yet. I need to speed things up before I run out of energy entirely. 

I took a few more deep breaths and then started climbing up her back again. I waited until I was right at the joint of her wings and then stabbed the blade in, tearing away chunks of her flesh. My plan had been to cut off the Hydra’s wings and kill her with blood loss – remembering the Wendigo that had tumbled from the Alliance plane with me all those months ago, which had killed itself by tearing off its own wings. But as soon as I started to hack at the Hydra’s wings, I realised that it was never going to work.

The joint muscle is as thick as a car. It would take me all night to cut through that…and that’s not even counting the bone.

The Hydra started to recover and I knew I didn’t have time to procrastinate.
I need to find a vulnerable part. The heads won’t work and the wings are out of the question. The hands will be too difficult. That leaves–

I snapped my head up.
The internal organs.

Climbing upwards, I launched myself over the edge of the Hydra Queen’s shoulder and onto the Hydra’s wounded chest. I somersaulted and then stabbed out, coming to a sliding stop a few yards above one of the yawning holes that had been punctured into her torso by the Ion cannons. I glanced back down at I’orin, hoping none of the canons were still leveled at the creature. But no one was looking my way. Everyone on the deck had abandoned their cover and were walking to the port side of the ship, staring out into the ocean. The Hydra Spawn were no longer attacking either – they just swirled above the deck. I glanced in the direction they were facing and with my enhanced vision saw a great mound of some colossal creature protruding from the water in the distance. 

What the hell?

I couldn’t let the new arrival distract me from my task. I focused back on the Hydra Queen, dropping down and preparing to force my way inside through one of the cannon holes that had bored in her chest. A piercing sound emanated from the distant creature. It overpowered my mind, and then suddenly I was watching a vision of my intended plan unfolding in front of me.

I tore inside the creature, working my way through her body, which looked more like an insect’s nest than the inside of an animal – with honeycomb shaped walls containing Hydra Spawn, protected with a sheath of opaque membrane. I carved and sliced my way up until I reached the hollow chamber that housed the Hydra Queen’s giant beating heart. As I carved the organ away from its tree-trunk sized ventricles, an acidic substance was released, which coated me from head to toe. It was so toxic that even in my altered state, I couldn’t stop my skin from peeling from my bones, and then the bones themselves dissolving into a paste.

I watched myself die.

My mind twitched as I was shown an alternate vision.

The Hydra Queen collapsed back into the water, dead by a grenade I had set off next to her heart, rather than cut with Crimson. Then the scene switched to I’orin being escorted across the sea by a navel fleet. Moments later the ships were attacked by squadrons of Skyjets. Time surged forward again and I was being unloaded from an Umbra Skyship by rough hands. I tried to fight my captors off but for some reason my body wouldn’t respond. Time lurched forward and I was kneeling in front of Lilith inside what looked like twisted nightmare version of a church. She clutched a flaming sword in her hand, which she had just used to carve my friends into unrecognisable pieces whilst she made me watch. She used the same blade to dismember me, and I was powerless to stop her. I screamed and begged for her to kill me, and she finally obliged with a flashing strike of her sword. I felt my head roll off my shoulders and then everything faded to black. 

Again I watched myself die.

The visions faded and then I was back to myself, clinging to the Hydra Queen and trembling from the after-effect of the bizarre visions.

I lowered Crimson.
I get the feeling something really doesn’t want me to attack this creature.

A moment later the same noise pierced the night once again – this time with enough power to steal almost all of my remaining energy. The Hydra Queen gave a submissive whimper and then reared backwards, the resulting tremor enough to shake my grip loose.

I fell from the Hydra Queen and hit the deck hard enough that despite still being in my super state, my arm shattered and several of my ribs cracked. Groaning, I rolled over to the side and spat a mouthful of blood onto the deck. I felt I’orin slip backwards and when I opened my eyes I saw that the Hydra Queen had released the ship from her wing grip. The colossal creature’s eyes were wide with what could only have been fear, and I watched in stunned silence as she turned and dove away. The last thing I saw was the flick of her tail, before it dipped over the waves. A moment later her spawn dove after her, hitting the sea like giant darts.

It’s over….

“What the hell just happened?” I said, dragging myself to my feet. No one answered me. I got my answer when I turned and saw that all of the Lightwardens and Vengeful were bowed to one knee, their fists placed across their hearts and heads bowed in deep reverence. They were chanting something under their breaths.