30 – The Carrion _____

“нⷩiͥiͥ,̓ hͪiͥiͥ,̓ hͪiͥiͥ…”

Jack didn’t get the chance to step forward. Leslie fired twice, lever action flashing with the speed at which he actuated it. A flash of blue hit Jack in the chest and thigh, spreading out like a paintball, only to keep spreading—cracking. Her flesh turned to ice, frozen solid, only for the effect to stop abruptly the moment it reached one of her many tattoos.

“Hya!” Rick shouted, bringing down his blade. Jack hopped back, bringing up her knee. Fragments of ice shattered away as the sword hit her thigh, twinkling through the air as they dissipated, leaving nothing behind.

Erika moved, lightly dragging on time just enough to keep an edge. She dashed past The Hermit, packing down her pipe, and The Emperor.

Jack’s grin only grew as she put her foot down, the shattered, empty segment refilling with bone and muscle and skin in a reverse of her usual disappearing act. She slipped around another slash from Rick, pivoting to meet Erika’s bat with a raised arm.

Erika’s bat claimed a tattoo, fracturing it and her forearm. Jack let go immediately, ducking and pivoting as Erika stumbled forward from the sudden lack of resistance. She whirled, bat coming around with her.

Jack leaned in, catching the bat with her already broken arm. “Iͥ waͣnᴛⷮ ᴛⷮoͦ ᴛⷮoͦy—”

A scaled, clawed hand wrapped around Jack’s throat from behind. The Emperor ripped Jack off her feet, swinging her up and over her head, and slammed her down into the ridged floor. Erika stumbled forward again without Jack there to push back, this time almost getting her head removed as Rick’s sword sliced through the space where Jack had been.

“Watch it!” Erika shouted before covering her face with her arm, shielding herself from a sudden heat.

The Emperor blasted a crater into the meat of the floor. She slammed her foot forward, into her own rocket exhaust, to ensure Jack stayed pinned down. Her crisp ironed pants vanished more than they burned, leaving scaled leather behind. Both of them sank, the meat of the floor giving way beneath the heat and the fire, filling the air with the vague scent of roast duck.

A quick firebreak kept the blast of flames from burning Erika away.

Rick, on the other hand, slid several steps back, panting heavily as his knuckles whitened under his grip on his sword.

After a full ten seconds of sustained flame, The Emperor clamped her jaw shut, letting Erika blink away the spots in her vision.

Erika’s eyes first went to Leslie, shielding Anna with his body, who was shielded in turn by a glittery smoke in the air.

Jack was still under The Emperor’s clawed foot, more intact than Erika would have expected, but still crisped over everywhere her tattoos did not cover. The Emperor lifted her foot and slammed down hard enough to make the entire esophagus shudder. A spurt of blood from Jack’s mouth coated The Emperor’s leg, which she swiftly burned off with another, shorter blast of flame.

Erika hurried forward, ready to break every last one of Jack’s tattoos while she was pinned.

The Emperor leveled a flat gaze, pupils shrinking and nose flaring like she was about to fry Erika. “You should be handling the Carrion Eater.”

“It isn’t fucking going anywhere!” Erika snapped, glaring down at the literal crater. A charred, carbonized crust of flesh supported The Emperor’s waist-deep hole in the ground. She was about to jump in, slam her boot right into Jack’s face, when a groan from Rick made her look away.

“Guys,” he panted, sweat dribbling off his face. “I… have a problem.” He spoke with heavy breaths between each word.

Erika’s eyes swept over him, worried he got injured, but he looked whole and hearty. His clothes were intact, no rips or tears that might be hiding wounds, and he hadn’t even gotten burned. It barely looked like he had been in a fight at all.

Rick staggered forward, arms shaking as his fingers flexed, like he was trying to let go. Her eyes widened as she scanned the sword from hilt to tip and noted how clean it was, as if plucked from a museum’s display cabinet. The talisman dangling from his neck glowed a red hot, singeing the fabric of the bulletproof vest he wore. The pointed end of the sword dragged an ominous line through the air as he fought against his own feet carrying him forward.

“Then come stab her quick!” Erika shouted as The Emperor half-turned, sparks dancing between her teeth. She looked down at Jack and hissed.

The cracked charcoal on her body was slowly fading away, pushed out and replaced by fresh skin that seeped out from underneath her tattoos.

Erika hopped into the pit, crushing Jack’s arm underfoot. She held her bat, keeping it over Jack’s head, before looking back to Rick. He still struggled, still fought against himself. “Rick!”

“I don’t know… that getting closer to you guys… is a good idea,” he panted out, eyes twitching in panic even as his feet still slid toward the pit.

He raised his sword and The Emperor’s mouth opened a little wider. Blue velvety smoke swirled around him, tugging and pulling at him, but a single flick of the blade and the smoke dispersed.

Erika scrambled back out of the pit, hauling herself up and over the gap. She dragged time as she moved, hurrying to finally do the thing she should have done long ago and break his curse.

Jack’s hand lashed around her ankle, dragging Erika back into the pit with a wide grin on her face.

Erika saw red. She stomped down, boot breaking every tattoo on Jack’s head. Leslie shouted something about keeping Rick calm. Erika stomped again, destroying the grin and the teeth. Heat swelled at her side. She stomped again as Anna yelled something about blood in the walls. Finally, Jack’s grip went limp. Erika kicked the arm off and turned.

Leslie slid forward, putting himself between The Emperor and Rick, diving forward in a tackle.

The Emperor held her breath.

Leslie cried out in pain. Rick shouted in alarm.

Erika hauled herself up and out of the pit, bat forgotten as she rushed over.

By the time she made it, Rick’s sword was secure within its sheathe, forgotten at his side as he muttered apologies over and over again. Leslie clamped his hands over his face, squeezing with enough force that Erika worried he might crack his own skull. It was a sign he was alive though, as were his clenched teeth and heaving breathing.

His hands didn’t cover the entire wound. It was just too long, a gash from the top of his forehead down to his chin. Not a pretty little cut like people got in movies, but a deep gouge, parting even the bone visible between the flaps of his skin. Erika knelt down, hands hovering, but not touching. She didn’t know what to do. Leslie forced her through first aid, but this felt an order of magnitude higher.

A heavy thump shook the ground behind Erika. She whirled, fight or fight kicking in, only to find The Emperor out of the pit and towering over her.

“End this.”

“Fuck you, you—”

“There are medics with the caravan,” The Emperor said, somehow managing a softer tone beneath the layer of authority. “End this, and we can all return to a proper hospital.”

Erika bit back a retort, eyes breaking from The Emperor’s face as she took in the wider picture. Only four people stood uninjured—three, if Rick’s mental anguish counted as a wound. How many had they come down here with?

“I will evacuate him now—cursed wounds are not to be trifled with—” The Hermit said, tone soft as a cloud of violet puffed from the corners of her lips. “But The Aeon—”

“I will retrieve him or his body,” The Emperor said, eyes staring into the darkness of the tunnel. “He can’t be far. Do not bother waiting for me.” She stepped past Erika, Rick, and Leslie, not even looking at any of them until she was almost wholly consumed by the darkness. She paused, slit-pupils staring over her shoulder at Erika. “End this,” she said again before disappearing into the tunnel.

Erika watched her go with a glare, though one less heated than she felt the situation warranted. Concentrating on more important matters, she looked back down to Leslie, only to find a layer of purple smoke cocooned around his struggling body.

“You’re… fine,” he ground out. Erika didn’t know if he was talking to Rick or to her.

When she reached out, her hands passed through the smoke, reaching the smooth, slick walls of the ridged throat.

Erika ground her teeth. She raised her fingers in front of her face and snapped. The tension broke—Erika didn’t know if it was a good idea to do things like that, emotionally speaking, but she breathed easier, drawing in a heavy breath. “He’ll be fine,” she said, more for Rick’s sake than because she believed it.

A cursed wound. What, exactly did that mean?

Had others survived Rick’s sword before?

She glanced at the medallion hanging from his chest, red glow slowly fading.

She doubted many had. Not if Rick wasn’t in control.

“He’ll be just fine,” Erika said, forcing a smile. Rick didn’t even look up at her, still staring at the spot where Leslie had been. “Hermit, can cursed wounds…” Erika started, trailing off as she turned to find The Hermit missing.

She must have gone to help, or at least to explain the nature of his injuries. The others were still here, Anna and The Adjustment, both near the opening of the tunnel.

And Jack.

Erika stared down at the pit. She doubted The Emperor would have wandered off if there were any threat of Jack getting up, and as she looked, Erika couldn’t see any sign of life. Her arms, both twisted and broken, didn’t so much as twitch. The fresh skin seeping from her tattoos had stopped. Her head was missing entirely, replaced with an imprint of a combat boot.

Erika spat into the pit as she edged past it. She was a bit wary of leaving Rick alone in his current state, but she had a job to do. The sooner she killed this thing, the sooner she could check on Rick—and everyone else—properly.

Despite drawing her gun, Erika couldn’t help but pause at Anna. There was… far, far less blood than she would have expected from someone whose arms had been torn off. “Are you—”

“If you ask if I’m okay, I’m going to beat you with my own arm,” she said, holding up one severed arm with her other hand as The Adjustment worked her thread to reattach it.

“Quit moving,” The Adjustment snapped. “I don’t even know how you’re moving. Your muscles are torn up, not attached to the rest of you… not to mention your bones, veins, and whatever else you humans have in there.”

“No idea either,” Anna huffed, stretching her arm despite The Adjustment’s orders. It made an odd grinding noise of bone against bone that set Erika’s hackles on end. “Ask The Castle. All I know is that I can feel my fingers again.”

Erika shuddered, backing away before she could stop herself. That… disquiet she felt around The Castle and, since her return, occasionally with Anna returned in force. It took an effort of willpower to shove it aside, but by the time she did, Anna was staring at her.

“Sorry. Just… body horror.”

“Try living it,” Anna muttered, shoving her arm up into its socket. She wiggled it around, bones grinding. The torn flaps of skin around her shoulder flopped uselessly, but her fingers started flexing on their own.

“Don’t like body horror? Shouldn’t have walked down a giant bird’s throat,” The Adjustment said with a laugh that didn’t carry any humor.

“The bird is too big. It’s abstract,” Erika said as she stepped away, gun out and raised toward the pool of acid, hoping she didn’t come off as running away. “And it’s about to break.”

Erika’s finger tightened over the trigger as she focused. Acid. Stomach. Digestion. Consuming. Eating. The black-violet cascade erupted from her pistol, carrying with it her anger and her intent. The warble in space ate the acid, drawing it up and out from the pool as it careened outward. It didn’t affect the level of the ocean.

Then it dipped below the surface.

Nothing happened. Erika chewed on the corner of her lip, eyes seeking any sign that it worked. “Anna, its name?” Erika asked as her mind raced. She had one more bullet, one more chance, but the bird didn’t have a mouth anymore and if the stomach didn’t work…

“Carrion Eater,” Anna said.

“Fuck.” Erika ground her teeth, pacing back and forth on the basalt columns that made up the platform. If not the mouth or the stomach, what else was there? She thought that would work, she felt it would work. It should have worked.

Erika stepped up to the edge, aiming her pistol down toward the roiling ocean. The waves crashed against the rock lining of the stomach. It reached higher, cascading back with a curl into the mass. Parts of the stone-like wall darkened as liquid slopped against them, making Erika pause.

The newly darkened portion wasn’t just a small line, it stretched several feet. The next wave reached even higher, splashing against more previously untouched stone. Less like a larger wave and more like the tide was coming in. Looking back over the acidic ocean as a whole, the waves weren’t just small bulges, but tall, cresting mountains of liquid.

A caw of a bird made Erika look up to find another one swooping down with a massive corpse held within its talons—a cow, Erika decided as she squinted. It dropped the cow from about the same height the others had, but the ocean had swelled. The geyser of liquid from the cow splashing into the ocean shot up before the bird could get away.

The organic parts of the biometallic bird burned away in an instant, leaving only the metallic armor falling through the air. Even that melted to mere pellets before striking the surface.

The ocean there, where it fell, sunk inward, rather than swell up like the surrounding waters.

Erika backed away from the edge as a high splash reached above the platform, thankfully deflected by the slight curvature of the stone. “I sure hope you can walk,” Erika shouted as she took another step backward, dodging a thin spray of the viscous liquid landing on the tops of the basalt. It hissed and cracked, bits splitting off to splatter down into the pool. “We need to get out of here.”

“My arms are broke, not my legs,” Anna grunted out as The Adjustment helped her to her feet.

Stopping just long enough to ensure both were on their feet and moving, Erika leaped over the pit with Jack’s body. “Rick!”

Rick looked like he barely moved since Erika left his side, still hunched down where Leslie vanished. She grabbed him by the shoulder, hauling him to his feet. He stumbled forward, listless until Erika smacked him across the face.

“Mope later, run now!” she shouted in his face as she dragged him forward.

It took a few steps, but he finally started putting weight on his feet. The Adjustment and Anna caught up, and he started to run on his own. A sizzling sound started up at her back as the acid crept forward, eating away at the esophagus. Erika snatched a flashlight from her armory as they ran further into the darkness, only to slam face-first into The Emperor.

Built like a brick wall, The Emperor didn’t move. Erika bounced off, staggering back a few steps.

The Aeon sat slung over The Emperor’s shoulder, bent at the waist, with his arms dangling limp down The Emperor’s back. Erika didn’t know if he was alive, but knew none of them would be if they stood around and argued. So Erika didn’t bother giving her a chance to argue, running right past the moment she regained her footing, spurred on by the sound of liquid pouring down into a basin—into the pit The Emperor had made.

Anna and Rick sprinted right past, the former clutching her arms, the latter with his sword despite having left it on the ground. Even The Adjustment didn’t stop for chatter. Five steps forward and Erika felt a rush of heat against her back, but The Emperor wasn’t aiming her direction. Erika hoped it helped, but didn’t glance back to see what The Emperor had done.

Erika focused on running, not intending to trip over the ridges in the throat. It felt longer, like it took more steps to get back to the airway, then even more steps before she saw the glow of light at the end of the throat, and finally jumped, leaping straight out and onto the glassed terrain. Momentum shoved her forward, leaving her feet struggling to keep her up.

She skidded to a stop just at the edge of the cliff, staring down over the edge.

There, down below, was a pool of acid. The red mist cleared away, letting her see the swirl of a violent whirlpool down in the depths. The acid swirled around a black void at the bottom, rising higher at the edges of the ocean as if it were trying to escape being drawn in, but the ground cracked and fell away beneath the ocean, enlarging the hole and drawing more and more in.

“Move!” she shouted, turning.

The caravan wasn’t far, just a short dash down the glassed brier patch. Her yelling and flailing got attention, but it didn’t drive action.

It looked like the caravan hadn’t gone without trouble since Erika last saw it. More than a few of the SWAT crew were on the ground, being tended to by one of the medical officers. The Hierophant stood at the lead car, panting heavily with one hand pressed to his face, keeping a torn chunk of his mask in place manually.

Erika’s eyes found Delilah, slumped over and unconscious. Two SWAT guys were trying to rouse her, gently shaking her, to no effect.

The Emperor hit the ground behind her, straightening to her full height. It left her towering over Erika, high over Erika. When they first met in that board room, Erika hadn’t thought she was much bigger, but now, with her scaled legs and arms elevating her, Erika had to strain her neck while standing side-by-side.

“Cars move in thirty seconds,” she commanded, voice projection on a whole other level as everyone in the caravan scrambled into gear.

Erika might have found herself irritated another time, but authority was The Emperor’s whole shtick. More importantly, she glanced back to find Anna, Rick, and The Adjustment scrambling out of the decapitated head. Her stomach clenched, fearing the throat would turn to a spigot of acid, drenching everyone, only to hear a distant hissing.

Turning, further down the beast’s neck, she found the tall bushes of bramble collapsing inward, falling into themselves. Her vantage didn’t let her see what was happening, but a plume of black smoke drifted up from the area.

Anna stumbled her landing, bringing down The Adjustment as she fell. The Emperor caught Anna one handed, hefting her to her feet, while Erika picked up her fallen right arm and helped The Adjustment back up in the process.

“Can we leave now, from here?” The Emperor asked, meeting Erika’s eyes.

Erika stared, mind churning harder than the whirlpool. The answer was yes. She knew she could do it; she had cracked open a handful of holes in reality at this point and didn’t doubt herself for a moment. A bullet that could shatter a god could surely rend a little hole in reality even without Carter’s weak point.

The question that mattered was where they would end up.

Glancing down at the churning acid, watching as its level climbed up the supports of the distant bridge even as the hole drew more and more in, Erika decided that the question didn’t matter as much as she thought. There wasn’t going to be time to run to the bridge.

Erika drew and leveled her gun, aiming just ahead of the cliff’s edge where the convoy was already pointing toward. She hesitated, focusing and concentrating, feeling out her instincts. One bullet. One chance. One shot.

Her finger squeezed down on the trigger, pulling gently despite her tension. A black, warbling orb left the barrel of the gun, lazily sailing outward.

It punched through as if the cliffside, the churning acid, and the distant bridge were nothing more than a matte painting. A familiar starry sky sat above the skyline of Erika’s city, distant but existent. Trees and grass covered the landscape on the other side, reminding Erika of the haunted graveyard.

“Through the portal!” The Emperor commanded.

Erika ran alongside Rick, The Adjustment, Anna, and The Emperor. The car tires squealed, burning meat and rubber as they rushed forward. Birds swooped down, not to attack, but to escape, and no one was in a position to stop them.

Erika didn’t care. As soon as she touched the cool, refreshing air of the regular world, it melted away any concerns she had over the monsters. That was for The Eclipse to worry about. She had The Hunters to check on. And Delilah.

As the last of the convoy pulled through and she stared back at the portal, she watched the acid continue to rise, encompassing the field of brambles. It wouldn’t be long before it reached the portal and spilled out into Earth. Just as she started to think The Hunters would have to wait while she figured out how to close the portal, she heard a faint, distant whistle.

“The Terminator is coming,” she said to nobody in particular, relieved to hear that sound for the first time.

Relieved as she was, she did not want to be around when it touched down.