Chapter 37: Black gem

“Lead us in,” said James, grip tight on his fire-axe.

Becca had her Bushmaster up, and her voice was taut with tension. “I’m going to drop down. You guys better be right behind me. The edge is right where I’m at, the drop’s about five feet.”

Then she was gone.

James wanted to curse, to hesitate, but instead he slid his foot forward, sinking into the inky darkness till he could see nothing at all but felt the edge appear under his boot.

A deep breath and he hopped forward.

The darkness disappeared, and he dropped into a crouch beside Becca, who was already up and tracking a mutant Nemesis 2 as it came around a spire that pointed blasphemously up at the demon symbol like a huge, endlessly knuckled finger.

James froze.

The demon in the circular chamber was huge, easily ten feet tall, insectile like the Base Nemesis 2’s but engorged, its form made more complex with the addition of a dozen scythe arms clustered around a massive pair that could have cut a school bus open. Its head was a great fan of black gleaming bone that swept back in a mess of intertwined horns, and its’ face -

“Jesus wept,” croaked James, rising to his feet as Serenity dropped neatly beside him.

It was as if a score of Nemesis 2 porcelain masks had melted and adhered to the demon’s head, some overlapping, others distending so that their human features were ruined, mouths bloating into black smears, eyeholes ragged or freakishly large.

It was tearing itself free from a great black… thing, like a cocoon the size of an SUV, the entirety of which was webbed down with countless strands to the base of the spire and the floor.

Behind it lay dozens of people, their expressions slack, their eyes open, unmoving, their bodies covered in faintly gleaming gray patina of jelly.

“Make room,” said Serenity, pushing James aside, and Sarah leaped down with animal grace a second later, followed by Denzel who stumbled with a cry, then Bjørn and Joanna.

Sarah’s bright circle lit up around them, giving James some measure of comfort.

“Layer the shields right in front of us,” he said. “Keep that thing back. Ladies, shoot the shit out of it.”

Both the Bushmaster and the Tavor were alive with the gray flames of Smite, and as one they opened fire, pouring burning lead into the huge Nemesis’s masked head.

The demon screeched, wrenched itself free of the giant cocoon thing it had been attached to, and leaped.

Both women tracked it easily, hitting it all the way, but it came at them too fast. Shields shimmered into existence before it and it impacted hard, bounced off, and fell to the flesh-paste floor where it landed nimbly, great limbs flexing to take its weight.

Serenity’s mag ejected, she slammed a new one in, but the Nemesis burst forward, swinging its huge scythe-arms, and tore apart the shields that materialized before it as if they were made of cushions.

Denzel, Sarah, and Joanna all cried out in pain.

“Bless James!” he roared and threw himself forward to prevent the Nemesis from hitting the Protective Circle with all its might. Power, strength, speed, agility, and a huge reserve of stamina flooded into him, and his aura blazed bright as it washed over the giant demon.

Its ebon skin began to ashen, but not nearly fast enough. It swept a scythe-arm three meters long at him, but James ducked, came up on the far side and hewed with his axe at the joint. The Smite-axe cut clean through, and the massive forearm limb fell to the ground just as the second pierced him through the chest.

“Fucker,” he gasped, then swung his axe and unleashed his last Sacred Strike at the Nemesis’ head. The masks were already fragmented from scores of high velocity bullets, black blood oozing from the holes and cracks, and the Sacred Strike engulfed its head and shoulders.

The Nemesis staggered back, withdrawing its arm from his chest and waving it wildly as it shrieked, the sound reminding James of nothing so much as the dying spider at the end of Arachnophobia.

“James!” screamed Serenity, but he simply tapped an Aeviternum and felt clean white fire wash away his wounds and pain.

The Sacred Strike dissipated, and to his shock he saw that the Nemesis hadn’t gone down. Its upper torso was horrifically burned and mutilated, but with another shriek it leaped forward again and slammed its scythe-arm down on Sarah’s hemisphere, which flared white, held, and then the dozen smaller scythe-arms attacked and the circle imploded.

The Nemesis fell upon those gathered within. Serenity rolled aside, firing all the time, but a blade punched through Becca’s thigh and into the ground, pinning her in place. She screamed, reeled, then resumed firing, though her aim had become wild.

Blades slashed through Sarah, knocking her flying as blood fountained through the air, and then Bjørn stepped up, arms spread wide, his eyes burning, and cried out in a voice infused with power, “Stop!”

For a moment the Nemesis hesitated, then it slashed its arm across Bjørn’s chest and he flew to the side, nearly cut in half.

“Fuck,” grunted James. No Sacred Strikes left, and regular Smite wasn’t up to the challenge.

Only one thing for it.

He hurled himself forward, his fire-axe coming up and around, and with both hands clasping the hilt he brought it thundering down and imbued the attack with an Aeviternum point.

For a second it felt as if he’d stuck a knife in an outlet. His whole body went rigid as power flooded through him, causing every muscle to cramp, his feet to momentarily leave the ground, and his axe disappeared within a spasm of white lightning that trailed behind the head in an arc.

It hit the Nemesis squarely in the side of its abdomen, between its legs and just behind where its thorax rose up like a centaur’s. James felt no resistance; his axe passed clean through and slammed into the ground, causing the flesh-paste floor to crater.

With a cry he reeled back, his vision returning, and saw that the Nemesis had been split nearly in two; it had fallen on to its side, limbs waving weakly like a dying cockroach, black ichor spilling out into the shattered crater that revealed the regular street a foot or two down.

White flames enveloped Bjørn, Sarah, and Becca. Denzel let out a cry of extreme effort and fell to his knees.

Had he healed all three? No, Becca was conscious, as was Sarah. Maybe just Bjørn, then.

James did a quick head check. Serenity, Jason, Yadriel, Joanna, and Denzel hadn’t been hurt. The other three were rising smoothly to their feet, their terrible wounds erased by Aeviternum.

Everybody was fine.

Only then did James allow himself to cease panicking, to turn his attention back to the Nemesis, his body shivering from an excess of adrenaline, the shock of those awful moments easing.

“That… was embarrassing,” said Bjørn, rubbing at this chest as he strode up to the slain demon. “Apologies.”

Becca stepped up to the fallen torso, her face scrunched up in disgust and hate, and fired three rounds into what remained of the demon’s head, then spat on it.

“Sarah, you all right?” asked James.

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“Aye,” she replied. She’d dropped into a crouch and was slowly rubbing where she’d been wounded. “A queen, then.”

“Looks like it.”

Serenity still had her Tavor up, was watching the tops of the walls around them. “Guess the demons really loved the movie Aliens.”

“But it wasn’t laying eggs.” James hefted his axe and made his way over to the cocoon. “What the fuck was it doing?”

The others followed over. The cocoon was substantially built, tough, with black chitin plates worked into its surface. The spot where the queen had torn herself free was obvious, leaving a hole the size of a sewer manhole leading into the cocoon proper.

Becca produced a flashlight and shone it inside. “Disgusting.”

James bent down to look. The whole cocoon was hollow, a tunnel of sorts filled with black feelers and gleaming oily sponges.

“These people look like they were pushed out the back,” said Serenity, moving around it. “Oh. They were passed through that thing.”

“Oh damn, man.” Yadriel passed his hand over his frizzy hair. “You think the queen ate them then shat them out through the tunnel? But why?”

“Up there, sir,” said Jason, pointing to the peak of the spire. “What is that thing?”

James looked up. At the very peak of the spire was a glittering, multi-faceted black gem that size of a grapefruit.

Serenity raised her gun to it, and for a second James thought she’d open fire, but she merely studied it instead with Deadeye. “It’s attached to the spire by… veins?”

“I thought all this couldn’t get any worse,” said Joanna, looking like she was going to throw up.

“Worse would have been us dying,” said Denzel. “C’mon. We won this thing.”

“Want me to shoot it?” asked Serenity.

“No. For all we know it could explode like a bomb.” James rubbed at his bearded jawline. “Shoot just below it, see if you can knock it down. Whatever it is, we don’t want to leave it there.”

“Look here.” Becca had crouched by the base of the spire close to the cocoon and was gesturing with her rifle. “I thought these were all just support strands, but some of them look like arteries, or… something.”

Serenity opened fire, strafing the top of the spire about a foot from the top. Chunks of bone and hard jerky flew, and then the gem leaned over then toppled down, tearing a foot of spire off with it. It crashed to the paste-floor, and James winced, half expecting it to blow, but it simply lay there, gleaming as if with its own inner light.

Joanna and Denzel had moved over to the people, were talking to first one, then the other, shaking them by the shoulder, lightly slapping them.

“No response,” Joanna called back.

“I’m all out of juice or I’d try healing one,” said Denzel.

Serenity stood over the gem, frowning. “This is fucked up. Queen Nemesis passes people through the cocoon. They emerge whole instead of turning into flesh paste, but something gets passed through the veins attaching the cocoon to the spire. And more veins are attached to this gem, which is placed as close to the demon symbol up there as possible.” She looked up at James, expression bleak. “You ever see The Dark Crystal?”

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Used to love that show.”

“Maybe that’s what’s going on here. They drain people of their… I don’t know, essence, and then funnel it up the spire into this crystal.”

James felt an icy bowling ball drop into his stomach. “You think that thing holds the essence of the… how many people did it take to make this place?”

Serenity shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

James shivered and raised his radio. “Stokes, this is Kelly. We’re all alive. We killed a queen Nemesis in the center structure. It looked like a composite of twenty or so demons. It was attached to a cocoon which was attached to a spire, at whose top was a black gem. Serenity thinks the queen was draining people of their life force by passing them through the cocoon, which collected in the gem.” He paused, not quite believing what he’d just said. “Over.”

There was a long pause. The other Crimson leaders would have heard his report as well.

“Kelly, this is Star Boy.” Another pause. “That’s some fucked up shit. You got the gem?”

“Got it.”

“Bring it in. I’ll have the boys at the lab examine it. I think it’s time you got out of there, over.”

“We have a lab?” asked Serenity.

James shrugged. “Understood, Kelly out.”

Everybody was standing around in some form of shock or other, except for Sarah who remained crouched, her eyes narrowed, her expression pensive but collected.

“Serenity.” James dug out his phone and held it to her. “Record me.”

“Now?” Serenity hesitated then slung her rifle back and took the phone. “You’re the boss man.”

James moved over to the fallen Nemesis, waited for Serenity’s nod, and began speaking.

“James Kelly here. My team just broke into the flesh structure at the center of the dead zone under a demon symbol in Brooklyn. There was a queen Nemesis waiting for us. It was far tougher than regular Nemesis 2’s, but we killed it. We think it was passing regular people through that cocoon thing there, and sucking their essence out into the spire, which had that black gem thing at the top. We don’t know why, but we stopped them.”

He paused, momentarily at a loss, then found his thread. “What matters is that this is proof they can be stopped by leveled folk. We came in here a mix of Level 5 and up, but because we worked together, we got this done. More importantly, there’s a synergy that happens when nine people work together, and I think it’s got to do with getting the right spread of Benedictions. We were sharing the kills. People in the back working Bless or Shields of Faith were leveling up just as fast as front liners. As of now, we’re all Supplicant Level 1 or higher.”

James felt a surge of emotion. “What does this mean for you? Get organized, like I said. Get into groups of nine. We’re being given these powers for a reason and rewarded for using them right. Get a spread of Bless, Shield, and Smite, three each, and then have each person take a different Benediction in turn when they hit Supplicant Level 1. We’re far stronger together than we are apart. If we’re going to win this war, it’s going to involve fighting in teams. Find your people, get to work, and level up together.”

Serenity lowered his phone, and in her eyes he saw horror, yes, but also a bright and singular spark of hope.

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