Kane Gilmour - Ragnarok

Then the dire wolf made the choice for him.

It slid one of its rear legs backward and up the concrete pillar. The helmet’s heads-up display and the camera built into the faceplate registered the motion and reported it to Deep Blue. The creature stretched the leg as far up as it could and then sank its translucent claws on that foot deep into the concrete. Then it slid one of its clawed hands higher.

Son of a bitch. He’s going to try to climb backward up to the window, with me still hanging from him.

That was not going to work out well for Deep Blue. If the creature made it to the shattered window above, it would be free to attack him while he was still hanging out over the drop.

He tried King one more time through the communications link. “King! Wake up soldier! I need you!”

No response. Whatever was holding the man under its thrall was powerful.

Deep Blue reached his free hand up and grabbed the beast between its legs. The area was smooth, lacking any reproductive organs that he could feel.

Thank God for small favors.

He climbed up the creature’s back as it pulled itself up the wall backward. Once his grip was secure in the beast’s crotch, Deep Blue released the knife and quickly pulled an M67 fragmentation grenade-the only one he had-from a pouch on the front of his armor.

He popped the safety clip, thumbed out the pin and let the spoon flip outward into a graceful arc across the Midtown sky. He then rammed the grenade into the oozing wound left behind by the knife in the creature’s ass. He let go of the device and pulled his fist back. Then for good measure, he rammed his fist back into the wound, punching the grenade deeper.

Then he pulled his feet up and thrust them against the dire wolf’s back. He sprang and flew backward into the chasm of air between the Exxon Building and the Time-Life Building.

Deep Blue was still in his lateral swan dive out into space when the fragmentation grenade detonated, ripping the dire wolf in half and grotesquely sending its severed legs flying first up and then down, while its torso remained clinging to the wall for a horrible second longer, before it, too, began to fall.

With only 450 feet to fall, Deep Blue’s body was moving rapidly, so he just barely had time to twist in the air and pull the ripcord on the small parachute he wore. They had only had one nuclear device, and King carried that. With battle in a vertical space, Deep Blue had thought to carry a parachute-just in case.

As his parachute popped open, Deep Blue enjoyed the relatively calm nine-second ride to the street below him. He reflected that this was now the second time in a period of 24 hours that he had needed a parachute. I might start wearing one of these all the time.

The ground rushed up to meet him as Deep Blue pulled and released the toggles. As he came to a landing, Lewis Aleman contacted him on the headset in his helmet.

“That was interesting, Boss. Twice in one day?”

“Shut it, Ale.” His feet touched the ground and he quickly detached from the parachute and began to sprint back to the building’s doors. He needed to get back inside to help King.

“Got something that might help a lot. The dire wolves don’t see well with interference in the air surrounding them. Bishop reported they can’t deal with rain. Anywhere you can pick up some chaff?” Aleman’s voice sounded excited. They finally had a way to combat the creatures.

“As a matter of fact, yes. There is. Thanks, Lewis. You might just have saved the day.”

Deep Blue signed off and reversed his direction away from the building, and headed toward 6 ^th instead. As he reached the road, an olive drab Humvee came ripping around the corner, its thick tires barking on the pavement. Before it was done skidding to a halt in front of Deep Blue, General Keasling had the door open and was getting out.

“Holy shit, Tom! Are you okay?” Keasling hadn’t bothered to don his hat upon exiting the vehicle. Deep Blue thought this might be one of very few times he had seen the General lose military bearing when in uniform. He felt touched that his friend was exhibiting such care for him. Plus, he was pretty glad to be alive, himself.

“I’ll be fine, General.” Deep Blue shook the man’s outstretched hand. “In fact, I feel like having a party. Aleman says the creatures can’t see though airborne chaff and rain. The sprinkler system in the tower is empty, but there was a party supply store a few blocks down on 6 ^th, remember? Let’s go buy us some confetti. Then I need to get back up there. Something has control of King. It’s time we took control instead.”

Westminster Bridge, London, England

Knight couldn’t believe it, but he was starting to run low on ammunition for the Barrett. The Crescent lowered down to the middle of the Westminster Bridge and stayed in place, hovering about a hundred feet above it. Knight was now lying in the same open doorway he had used to fire down on the Eye. Night began to fall in shades of dark blue and purple. A tiny flicker of golden sunset was still visible on the horizon through the trees of St. James Park, at the end of Bridge Street.

It would have been a perfect view, if not for the huge portal of light enveloping Portcullis House, the office building just across the street from Big Ben, at the end of the bridge. Knight watched as wave after wave of dire wolves peeled out of the energy globe and turned left onto the bridge toward their deaths at his hands. He fired shot after shot, and with the speeding creatures coming directly toward him, he had no problem gauging their speed. At this point, the entire surface of the bridge was covered in viscous white fluid that leaked from the mounds of dead monsters. Some of the beasts even slipped in the muck, allowing Knight to fire on them while they were on the ground. Easy targets. He must have shot a hundred of them, but they were still pouring from the portal. He needed something with a higher rate of fire if he was going to get them all.

He had no idea why none of them chose to turn right out of the portal and head deeper into the city, toward the parks. It was like they were a flock of birds, or a shoal of fish, moving always in the same direction. He lined up one last shot with the Barrett’s Leupold scope, and squeezed the trigger. A bloom of fluid erupted from the front of the fast moving dire wolf’s chest.

Knight pulled his eye away from the scope and watched as the dire wolf fell forward on its chest and face, its legs grotesquely in the air behind it. It slid forward for another dozen feet, its intense momentum carrying it onward, before it rammed into another dire wolf corpse that lay on the bridge.

More dire wolves emerged from the portal up by the clock tower, but he had cleared them from the bridge for the moment. He took the opportunity the brief lull provided to stand up and abandon the Barrett. He headed deeper into the Crescent, running to an armory closet. Normally, Bishop was the one that used heavy machine guns. For one thing, he was the only team member strong enough to lug one around all day. Although Knight was smaller, he could still lift the 127-pound gun Browning M2 with its tripod, but he wouldn’t be able to carry it far. He brought the weapon over to the door and set it down.

“Black One, can you set down? I’m gonna hop out with a Browning.” Knight spoke to the pilot and before the man replied, the VTOL engines slowed and the ship began to lower the last hundred feet to the bridge.

“If you’re sure, Knight. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be on the ground with those assholes.” One of the things Knight had come to like about Black One was that the man was always congenial and upfront with his thoughts, but he complied with requests almost before they were issued. His copilot, Black Two, was usually taciturn to the point of sullen. Knight tried to remember when he had last heard the man speak. He couldn’t.