The spider was talking to him. Still.
The spider started talking when Selura returned to Perseus' mansion, with news of Rachel Van Horn's death.
It chittered in that skittery language of the spider-folk, in a silken voice that somehow he understood.
It said: "This was foretold, Alec. From the moment young Rachel glimpsed the return of the Elder God through the use of her unique talents, she has lived on borrowed time. The Angel foresaw this. And he knew that the girl would need a protector. The Spartan had served for some time, but his destiny lay on a different path."
"So the Angel contacted me. And he bid me save you, so that the girl might be saved as well. So I spun my webs and I went into the tunnels. Down, down I crawled into the pits, and I found you and I dragged you back to life. Such was the pact made centuries ago, and so were you born again into this world."
"But now the girl you were created to protect is dead, murdered by the Demon's servants, and her soul has gone to a place where the Spider cannot reach her. And so it is left to you to avenge her loss, to make right what has gone wrong."
"There are Four Horseman of the Apocalypse. One agent does battle with the greatest of them even now. But three remain, and you are the key to their destruction, Alec Scott. The Gohlem, the Fool, and the Scarecrow."
So Alec told Perseus and Selura and the others that he had to go into the city with them. Just as the spider told him. To find these "horsemen," and destroy them.
Nevermind that whenever Kurt or Hazard mentioned them, the Immortals and the Vampires and other superhumans started gasping in terror. Forget that Kurt Densmore, monster hunter extraordinaire, claimed the creatures could not be destroyed.
He said the same thing about the Carnifexi.
The spider didn't stop there, though. Not at all. While Perseus piloted his jeep through the snow and slush of downtown New Orleans, fending of demons out of Bosch, the spider continued to talk.
It said: "The Gohlem is the oldest of the Four. The Demon carved it out of marble, with a hammer and wedge if adamantine steel. Solid stone is the Gohlem, head to foot. It has the strength of the Earth, and its surface has never been cracked. The Demon breathed on it to give it life, and the Demon's breath animates it still, millennia later."
"The Wyrm was next birthed. But we shall not dwell on that.
"The third of the Four is the Fool. Two humans, lovers, who so delighted in the cruelties they could inflict on their fellow men and women that even the Demon was impressed with their skill. And their frugality; like good predators, they always ate what they killed. So the Demon used his sciences and sorceries to make the twain one. Their minds were shattered by the experience, but they become more than merely mortal. They became the Fool. Duality. Man and Woman. Reason and Madness. Hate and Love. All this and more would the Fool grow to be."
"The fourth was the greatest of the Four, the leader of them all. The Demon used the soul of a human as the core of his creation, a man named Attila, evil and rapacious. He fashioned for Attila a body of straw, and he put the soul within, and Attila became the Scarecrow, giver of life and bearer of death. The Scarecrow feeds, for he alone among the Four hungers. His sustenance is human spirit; he devours the souls of men and women, draining their life into him. He is Death, and he cannot be stopped."
<Bullshit,> Alec thought.
And when Perseus reached the Belvedere Hotel, and Selura and Mitra left the jeep, Alec took the wheel and left with the car. Because the spider knew where the Four Horsemen were, and that was where Alec needed to be.
But Alec would need to make a few stops first. He had some shopping to do.
Bran Mac Lyr rolled in the snow, trying to extinguish the flames that burned his clothes and threatened to scorch his flesh. He could feel a low rumble emanating from the Wyrm's breast, a sound which he took to be the beast's attempt at chuckling.
He sensed rather than saw a shadow falling over him, and without thinking, he swept the sword up in an arc, slashing at the advancing Wyrm. With preternatural speed, the serpent shifted its bulk, and the strike missed. Bran rolled to his feet, and the jaws of the Wyrm snapped dangerously close, the rank and fetid breath of the beast washing over him in a noxious cloud.
Bran pirouetted on his heels and brought the sword to bear, slashing open a cruel gash along the Wyrm's snout, weeping black blood that steamed in the open air and fell to the ground, burning through the snow and the pavement beneath. The crimson eyes of the Wyrm flashed, and it unleashed a deafening roar that shattered windows all along the street.
The streetlights also exploded, showering sparks onto the snowy ground before plunging the street into a darkness lit only by the pale glow of flames blocks away, and the ensorcelled weaponry of Bran Mac Lyr.
Again the Wyrm lunged, and Bran narrowly escaped its snapping jaws. He slashed it once more as it passed him to smash into a parked car, and it howled in pain.
In the distance, Bran heard answering howls. The children of the Wyrm, called to defend their scaly parent, were on their way.
Bran didn't have much time.
He could see the shapes of wolves appearing in the snowy street, their eyes and teeth flashing silver.
The Wyrm snorted, and spat the shattered hulk of the car out of its cavernous mouth. Bran flipped the broadsword in his hand, manipulating the heavy blade as if were a knife, and rammed the sword into the side of the Wyrm, slicing through scales and flesh, to bury it up to the hilt.
There was a tremendous scream, and as Bran wrenched the sword free and dodged the geyser of acidic blood that followed, the Wyrm looped its neck and breathed a jet of fire at him. Bran raised the shield as quickly as possible, and the bulk of the flames smashed harmlessly against the glowing metal disk.
But Bran felt the fire bit into his side, searing through his shirt to boil the flesh and bone beneath. He screamed in agony as the fire melted through his abdomen, burning away his bottom two ribs and searing his stomach and part of his lung. The fire subsided, and Bran dropped to one knee, tears of pain streaming down his cheeks as steam bubbled up from his side.
He felt the shock settling in as nerves and pain receptors were flooded to the bursting point with information. The fingers wrapped around the sword hilt numbed, and the blade fell from his hand to thump in the snow.
His eyes began to glaze over, and he watched in numb fascination as bits of his skin dripped onto the snow.
The warm breath of the Wyrm washed over him, and Bran looked up to see the Wyrm's snout, with yellowed teeth gleaming, a foot away from him. Beyond the mouth, the red eyes smiled at Bran. <Time to spit out your last, futile words of defiance, hero. This is your last chance to sneer something pithy before you become Wyrm food.>
Bursts of electricity played along the edges of the vicious wound in Bran's side, but it he would never be quick enough to heal him before the Wyrm snapped him up into its mouth. He was old for an Immortal, and his Quickening was powerful indeed, but not so powerful as to heal a mortal wound in seconds.
Bran reached out for the sword dumbly, his bare hand scraping through the snow to find the hilt of the Ray of Indra.
He couldn't find it. He was weak, powerless. Finished.
The Wyrm rumbled its laughter once more, and the jaws scissored open to devour Bran Mac Lyr.
And then, impossibly, there she was. Long red hair snapping in the cold air, blue eyes flashing with fire, her lips split in a wide grin, laughing, her voice like crystal. She alighted like a faerie on top of the Wyrm's head, a silver spear held loosely in her hands.
Brigid.
She smiled at him. "What?" she said. "Were you going to die alone?"
She tightened her grip on the spear, and raised it over her head, driving it down with all her strength to shatter ineffectually against the hard scales of the Wyrm. The Wyrm howled in consternation, and shook its head, trying to dislodge its assailant.
Bran found the sword. His grip tightened on the hilt. Strength flooded his limbs, and his blood sang in his ears. The Quickening flashed along his side, almost seeming to spark as it kicked into overdrive in a desperate effort to heal Bran before he killed himself. Slowly, the Celt stood.
His vision cleared for a moment, and he saw the figure scrambling for purchase atop the Wyrm's head was not Brigid, but a female Gargoyle with red tresses and bat-like wings, and around him other Gargoyles were engaging the werewolves that swarmed in the darkened city street. But then Bran allowed the *riastarthe*, the battle madness, to consume him, and his vision clouded again.
Once more it was Brigid, she he loved more than life itself, who struggled with the Wyrm. His mortal wound forgotten in a haze of anger and madness, Bran shucked the shield off his forearm, and raised the sword up high.
It flashed in his hand like a torch, blazing bright and cold.
Bran sprang forward, toward the Wyrm, hand outstretched. He grabbed the edge of the beast's nostril, and planted one foot against an incisor for leverage. With a Herculean heave, he dragged himself up onto the muzzle of the Wyrm.
Surprised, for it had discounted him as a threat, the Wyrm refocused its baleful gaze on the Celt.
<Remarkable,> it rumbled. It snapped its head back, and Bran saw Brigid tumble off of the Wyrm, to fall crashing to the ground below. Bran maintained his grip, for under the influence of the *riastarthe* he could not feel the scales of the Wyrm slash open his hand.
All Bran felt was cold fury.
He held the sword up and screamed in Gaelic, cursing the Wyrm and all its progeny. The Wyrm shifted its head, and then launched itself towards the brick wall of a nearby building, in order to smash Bran into a pulp against it.
Bran let go of the Wyrm's flesh and grasped the sword with both hands. He leapt forward, and the shining blade flashed once before smashing home between the Wyrm's blazing eyes.
They ran.
They ran because there was nothing else they could do. Gold had turned traitor, or had been a sleeper agent all the while, and now their enemies knew they were coming. The time for subterfuge had passed. Stealth was abandoned in a mad dash for the dark tower.
Victoria Baron found herself lagging behind the others, unable to keep up with the two Immortals or the Nightbane in the ankle-deep snow. Only human, unable to ignore the burning cold in her lungs or the strain in her legs as the Immortals could, not gifted with preternatural speed like the Nightbane, she could only plod along as quickly as her mortal legs could carry her. The snow crunched beneath her feet and impeded her frantic run.
She knew she was making good time, though. Trained as a CIA assassin, in her physical prime, she could normally outrun or at least keep pace with anyone, even wearing boots and running through snow. But the inhuman members of her party were just a bit faster than she, and they were drawing away from her.
Vic had lost track of Hazard. As soon as the Vampire told them about Gold's defection, he had disappeared into the night. Occasionally, they would hear gunfire or screams in the darkness, and Vic supposed that Hazard was keeping the Franklin Enterprises security staff busy...
She heard an engine roar behind her; something small but powerful. One of the ATVs the security teams drove on their patrols. Kurt, Shelly, and Jones were yards ahead, and probably couldn't hear the vehicle over their own breathing.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and Vic knew something bad was about to happen; she had learned to trust the sixth sense she developed as an agent. It had saved her life more than once.
Vic tucked low and rolled into a somersault through the snow, and she felt the bullets buzz past her a second before she heard the crack of their passage through the air. Vic was up and turning in a heartbeat, drawing both her pistols in one smooth motion. She didn't even consider using the sub-machine gun slung across her back; instinctively she knew she needed the accuracy of the Desert Eagles.
As she surmised, it was an ATV. One driver, wearing a ski mask, and a gunner mounted behind him, spraying the air with 9mm shells from his uzi.
Victoria took the time to aim, ignoring the bullets whining past her, and squeezed off two shots; one from each pistol.
The driver's head exploded as the heavy slug blew the back of his skull all over his gunner. The gunner had a moment of astonished disgust before his own forehead erupted in a splash of red. The ATV flipped over, spilling the bodies onto the ground, and staining the snow crimson.
"Vic!" Jones called back to her. "My God! Are you all right?"
Vic breathed a heavy sigh, and slipped her guns back under her jacket. She dusted snow off her jacket and legs, and shook some of it out of her hair. "I'm fine," she yelled back to the others. They had paused momentarily, and now waited for her to catch up to them. She began to jog, cursing the snow once again.
They weren't far from the dark tower now, and she could see the great black bulk of the structure rising out of a snow covered hill a few hundred yards away. There were dark shapes wheeling about the peak of the tower; winged shapes the size of men.
Victoria shouted a warning, just as the shapes broke off from the tower and glided in the direction of the companions. She saw Shelly begin to draw her sword, while Jones aimed that shotgun of his and fired off a blast of buckshot that hit nothing. Kurt casually nocked an arrow to his bow and let fly.
One of the winged creatures shrieked and plummeted to the earth with a sickening thud. Another arrow knifed through the night sky and pierced the throat of one of the beasts, slaying its instantly. And then one of them slammed into Kurt at high speed, and the monster-hunter was thrown off his feet to crash onto the ground, the bow flying free of his hands. The monster -- crowned with thorns and covered by interlocking scales of midnight hue -- prepared to slash Kurt open with its claws.
Shelly decapitated the beast with a shout, and black ichor spurted from the creature's neck as its body collapsed on Kurt. Jones fired twice more into the sky, tagging one of the creatures in the wing, and blowing the chest of another open like a Christmas goose. Both dropped like stones, and neither attempted to rise.
Kurt threw the creature of of himself with a muttered oath. "I hate Nightwings," he grumbled, wiping ichor off of his jacket. "Thanks, honey," he said to Shelly, who nodded with lips terse.
Victoria caught up to the others, and put her guns away again, wondering to herself when she drew them. Jones nodded grimly to her as he popped a few more shells into his shotgun.
Hazard suddenly materialized out of the darkness, grabbing Victoria's elbow and causing her to let out an involuntary shout. He mumbled an apology, and then jerked his chin behind them. "Take a look at the south," he said.
The others followed Hazard's direction, and Victoria saw the city of New Orleans, silhouetted on the horizon, its buildings darkened by a power outage, but its streets glowing with an unearthly blaze. "Check the sky," Hazard added.
Victoria gasped, and behind her Kurt cursed in Arabic.
The clouds above the city had cleared, and the constant snowfall was no longer a concern of the city. The stars of the night sky were dimmed, however, by the hellish glow from below, and also by a wheel of crimson light that spun and flashed in the sky itself. As Victoria watched, the wheel of light grew larger and larger...
"Its the gate," Hazard breathed. "We're too late."
"No," Kurt barked. "We still have a job to do." The Nightbane resumed his run towards the tower, and after a brief moment, Victoria and the others followed.
"Kurgan," Perseus growled. Of course the bastard had found some way to survive, while Darius and Lei and Tyr and Fitzcairn and so many others better than he were dust and bones.
"You don't seem happy to see me, pup," the Kurgan remarked, grinning broadly. He was bigger than Perseus remembered, a giant clad in black biker leathers that could not hide his heavy musculature. The Kurgan's head was shaven close, and a livid scar traced its way across his throat. The sword he held in one gloved fist was almost as large as Perseus, and yet the Kurgan carried it easily, almost casually.
"When was the last time we met?" the Kurgan asked. "Ah, yes. Eight hundred years ago... you were guarding the young Russian from me. What was his name?"
"Ivan," Perseus growled.
The Kurgan nodded. "Yes, that sounds right." As he spoke, the Kurgan stepped out of the alley and approached the other three Immortals. "As I recall, I butchered you, left you in a sea of your own fluids, and then decided to take Ivan's head. But I let him go. What ever happened to the poor boy?"
"I killed him," Perseus said.
The Kurgan laughed. "Perhaps we are not so different, then, Spartan."
"Oh, I think we are." Perseus spared a glance at his friends. Selura was biting her lip, and held her claymore with white knuckles. She wasn't afraid, he knew. She was bubbling over with rage and hatred; She had tried twice to destroy the man who killed Ramiriz, her mentor, and failed both times. Only luck had saved her from sharing her mentor's fate. She no doubt desired a third match with the barbarian from the Russian steppes. Mitra, for his part, looked relaxed, almost bored. Perseus knew from long experience that Mitra was at his most dangerous, most deadly, when he appeared most relaxed. It meant Mitra was saving his energy for an explosion of violence that few could withstand. He had never had the pleasure of crossing swords with the Kurgan, but he looked eager to try.
"It appears I am outnumbered," the Kurgan said with a smile.
<Why is he so damnably calm?> Perseus wondered. He knew the Kurgan possessed Viracocha's Quickening. Not only could he feel it in the strength of the Buzz the Kurgan emitted, but the evidence left behind at the Belvedere Hotel pointed to the same conclusion. But the Kurgan couldn't possibly...
"Well, at least the rules are on my side. You'll have to attack me individually. And I assure you, I can handle each Quickening and keep fighting."
"Bugger the rules, you black souled bastard," Selura snarled. "The world is dying, and the rules mean fuck-all." She was *really* angry, Perseus realized with some astonishment.
The Kurgan was apparently nonplused, even as Selura and Mitra spread out to flank him. Perseus stepped forward, his sword held ready. Selura was right. The stakes were too high now to bother with the chivalric codes of Immortal life. They would have to overpower the Kurgan. It was their only hope, really. Perseus knew only too well how deadly the Kurgan was in battle, having faced him twice and fared dismally both times.
"Well, then, we'll just have to see about that," the Kurgan said. He gestured with his free hand, and Perseus felt a familiar surge in the Kurgan's Buzz. Perseus, horrified, tried to cry out a warning, but was too late. A blast of electric light flashed from the Kurgan and slammed into Mitra, throwing him a hundred feet through the air to smash against a building; electric bonds held the stunned Hindu fast, suspended two floors above the ground. Another strobe of light flattened Selura in an hammer-like blow, pinning her to the snowy street. She struggled against the prison of energy in futility.
"You know," the Kurgan said, "you look like shit. You actually appear to have gotten older and weaker in the past eight hundred years. Bizarre."
Perseus tightened his grip on his blade. He muttered Quechua under his breath, and bolts of lightning flashed from him to smash into the Kurgan. Surprised, the Kurgan tried to raise some shields, but Perseus, more experienced, battered them aside and smashed the Kurgan with a battering ram of Quickening.
It was a desperate gamble, as Perseus would need the Quickening to seal the gate, but then, he wouldn't survive to use it if he couldn't defeat the Kurgan.
Momentarily stunned, the Kurgan stood slackjawed and bleeding. Perseus took three steps and launched himself into a spinning kick, slashing through the air to crash against the Kurgan's jaw with a sick crack. The Kurgan was rocked backward, and Perseus landed lightly on his feet. <Time to finish this quickly and cleanly,> Perseus thought. The gladius darted out, flashing in the light from the streetlamp.
And the Kurgan blocked it.
"Fuck," Perseus grunted in surprise.
"Nice try," the Kurgan growled. He should have been stunned for at least ten minutes, and yet he had recovered in less than ten seconds. It must have been a function of his apparent resurrection. He healed much, much more quickly than a normal Immortal. Frighteningly quickly.
With blades locked, the two Immortals stood still for a moment. The Kurgan sneered. Perseus spit in his eye, and drove a knee into the barbarian's groin. Hardly fazed, the Kurgan shoved his sword against Perseus', knocking the Greek stumbling backward in the snow.
Back, beyond the reach of Perseus' sword. But where the Kurgan could reach him easily with that two-hander of his. With the speed of Quickening itself, the Kurgan launched an attack, and it was all Perseus could do to parry the flurry of blows.
The Kurgan was faster than ever, too. While Perseus was slower.
Perseus ducked low as the Kurgan's sword whistled by overhead, and lashed out with a booted foot that shattered the Kurgan's ankle. Knocked off balance for a moment, the Kurgan was left wide open, and Perseus darted in to slash open a gash in the Kurgan's chest. Bright red blood splashed, even as the Kurgan's shin snapped back together, and he managed to bring the hilt of his sword down on Perseus' shoulder with a thump.
The Spartan was knocked off his feet by the blow, and fell to the snowy ground. He rolled instinctively, and narrowly missed being bisected by the Kurgan's sword.
He found his feet in an instant, and once more dodged just in time.
Still, the Kurgan's sword bit into Perseus' flesh, opening a wound in his left shoulder. It would heal in minutes, but Perseus didn't have minutes.
The cut in the Kurgan's chest was already maddeningly healed.
As Perseus regained his equilibrium, the Kurgan attacked once more, his heavy blade lashing out like a cobra to sting the Greek. He parried them as quickly as possible, but a few strikes slipped through to tear into him.
Perseus began to bleed. And the Kurgan laughed.
The Spartan ignored the pain, clenching his teeth and cursing the Kurgan with his every breath. He fought back as hard as he could, but he couldn't reach the Kurgan, couldn't get past that stinging sword. The Kurgan laughed, a harsh chuckle that matched the clang of steel on steel.
Perseus fought, knowing that if he fell here, all the Earth would die.
The Kurgan battered aside his defenses, and slashed Perseus' body repeatedly. The Spartan caught the Kurgan's blade with his own, locking the weapons momentarily. "Kurgan," Perseus said, the strength leeching from his body by a dozen slowly healing wounds. "You must know what is at stake here. The world teeters on the brink of Armageddon."
With a smooth move, the Kurgan knocked Perseus' sword out of his blood slicked hands, and threw it spinning through the darkness. Another slash opened Perseus' belly, and the Greek's intestines spilled free. Perseus dropped to his knees.
"Of course I know," the Kurgan growled. "And I don't care. With the Prize, or the next best thing to it, I won't need to fear any apocalypse."
"Fool," Perseus spat weakly.
"Perhaps," the Kurgan grinned. "But I am the victor." He raised his sword for the final blow. "There can be only one," the Kurgan growled.
The sword fell, and there was nothing Perseus could do to stop it. His concentration was shattered, and he couldn't speak the magick tongue in time to save himself anyway.
He had failed.
There was a ring and a shower of sparks as steel connected with steel, and Perseus looked up, astonished, to see the Kurgan's blade caught by a katana held in the hands of a scruffy looking man in a leather jacket.
"Heh heh heh," the man chuckled. "Miss me?"
The Kurgan's face crumpled. "MacLeod," he hissed. "At last."
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PoT_Ch39.php -- Revised: January 27, 2021.