Götterdämmerung (21 page)

I’m coming for you
, she silently swore.
And this will all end today.

CHAPTER XVI

All My Yesterdays

“This is weird, even for me.” The Peregrine looked around at the natives, who sat and stood in a circle around the three heroes. Max held Catalyst’s glove in his hand, trying to ignore the mystic energy that swirled around it. “All of these people serve The Voice?”

Gravedigger nodded. “That’s what they tell me.”

Max looked at her, his eyes narrowed behind his bird-like mask. “Do you think The Voice is God?”

“The one from the Bible? I don’t know. The Old Testament version, maybe. I was never very religious growing up but after seeing things like Darhoth and being brought back from the dead, I’ve revised my feelings about the supernatural.” Gravedigger glanced over at Minerva, who was approaching with a grim look on her face. “But if you’re asking me if I think The Voice created the world in seven days, no. Not really. I think The Voice is ancient, powerful and not very much like us. But I don’t think it created humanity.”

“I’m just glad we had time to do a bit of planning and preparation,” Lazarus said.

“I hope it’s enough.” Gravedigger took a deep breath. “If we fail…”

“We won’t,” Peregrine replied. “All three of us have done the impossible again and again. The biggest mistake Darhoth and her ilk made was in not killing us when they had the chance. The Mother of Pus should have slain Lazarus that day it all went to hell. They should have dealt with me when I was captured. Separately, we’re all capable of doing damage to them but together…”

“We’re something special,” Gravedigger finished for him. “I’d agree with that. I don’t always agree with the methods you two use or the ideals you espouse but I want you both to know that the one good thing to come out of all this is the amount of respect I’ve gained for you. If we win and we remember all of this, I’m going to be there for you, whenever and wherever you need me.”

Peregrine held out a hand and Lazarus placed his atop it. Gravedigger completed the symbolic act.

“I think the same goes for us, too.” The Peregrine smiled. “Too bad I live way down in Atlanta. We could make this team a permanent gig.”

“Let’s not get carried away,” Lazarus said and Gravedigger laughed. It felt like the first time in a very long time that she’d laughed in anything other than gallows’ humor.

Minerva interrupted their conversation, having approached as they clasped hands. She looked apologetic but determined. “Forgive me, but your enemies have arrived. Tribesmen are trying to delay them but I don’t know how long you have.”

Lazarus said, “You told us to wait for the right moment to use the glove’s magic. If we do it now, will it work?”

The dark-skinned woman raised the delicate fingers of her right hand and traced them through the air. To Lazarus’ amazement, he saw ripples follow in her hand’s wake, as if she were disturbing the surface of water. “The walls have grown very thin. You should be able to manipulate the time stream, perhaps not as much as you’d like but we don’t have time to wait.”

The Peregrine slipped the gauntlet into his hand and reached out to clasp Gravedigger’s. She, in turn, took hold of Lazarus’.

As soon as all three of them were in contact, something seemed to change in the atmosphere of the island. The ripples that they had seen around Minerva’s hand were now large waves that reminded Max of the way heat would ripple above the asphalt on a hot summer day. A rift appeared before them, showing confusing scenes that flickered quickly, moving from one scenario to the next. One by one, they all realized that they were seeing elements of each other’s past: Charity’s rough-and-tumble life on the streets, the night she died and was reborn, the first tentative steps in her romance with Mitchell; Max’s witnessing of his father’s murder and the slowing awareness that he was changed by the event, followed by his first meeting with Evelyn; Lazarus saw his graduation and subsequent recruitment into The Illuminati, the betrayal that led to the end of his life as Richard Winthrop and his rebirth as Lazarus Gray, finally seeing himself standing alongside the rest of Assistance Unlimited.

Then the images shifted, centering on one particular moment in time: when Darhoth had confronted Lazarus and told him that it was too late. They saw her completing the last components of the spell that fully released her brethren back into the world.

“That’s it,” The Peregrine said. He held Catalyst’s glove aloft. “Everyone focus on that single moment in time!”

Just as the heroes began to put their combined mental energy into that goal, Darhoth emerged from the jungle. Her smoky form saw what was happening and immediately converged upon them. She howled like a banshee, her acidic touch burning the natives who rose to stand like a barricade around the trio of vigilantes.

Gravedigger turned her head and saw Darhoth rushing towards them but the image faded. The heroes were gone, thrust back through time to the one moment when history could be altered.

In their wake, Darhoth howled in defeat. There was nothing left for her to do except hope that her past self could once again triumph. If that happened, then this world would still be left unchanged. But if the heroes somehow vanquished the Darhoth of one year ago, then this glorious world, full of so many delicious torments for humanity…

Would be gone forever.

* * *

One Year Ago

Eun frowned. “I like looking at Li but I don’t trust her. She’s only pretending to be working with us and I don’t think we should have let Gravedigger into our base.”

“She’s Samantha’s sister.”

“Half-sister.”

Lazarus fixed his steely gaze upon his friend. “It’s important to her that we try to repair our relations with Charity. I don’t like their methods but I feel we owe that to her.”

Eun grinned. “And to think that people say you’re an unfeeling beast.”

“Who says that?” Lazarus asked, arching one eyebrow.

“Just kidding,” Eun hastily replied. He was about to quickly change the subject when a bright glow illuminated the entire street, causing a passing car to veer off the road as its driver was suddenly blinded. The vehicle slammed into a cigar stand, sending several passing innocents flying to the ground in bloody heaps.

Eun and Lazarus both raised their arms, trying to protect their eyes from the glare. They saw a female shape in the midst of the glow emanating from just a few feet in front of their parked car.

The doorman of the hotel approached, muttering under his breath, and Lazarus cried out as the woman raised her right hand and let loose some sort of powerful magical blast that eradicated all trace of the poor man.

Eun turned towards Lazarus, giving his leader a moment to tell him what he should do but what he saw was almost more shocking than the sudden attack. Lazarus was shaking his head, as if to free of it from cobwebs and standing at his side were two people who shouldn’t have been there at all. Gravedigger and The Peregrine both stared up at Darhoth, the so-called Mother of Pus, and they drew their weapons with obvious relish.

Eun saw The Peregrine toss something to the ground—was it Catalyst’s glove? “What’s happening?” he asked.

“Focus on making sure that passersby are safe,” Lazarus ordered. “We’ll deal with Darhoth.”

Eun did as he was told, pulling the nearest people aside and shoving them towards the inside of the hotel.

Darhoth, meanwhile, regarded the heroes with disdain. “It’s over for you,” Darhoth mumbled, the light surrounding her beginning to fade. “I kept my true plans away from everyone, even my closest advisors.” She looked lovely and terrible, all at once. A crooked smile touched her full lips, as if she were still learning how to manipulate human expressions. “People revere you as if you were gods but this is your twilight. This is the day that you bow down before your betters.”

Lazarus smiled grimly. Darhoth was repeating herself, saying the same things that she had before. That meant that she was still in the final stages of her spell, too, which confirmed that history could now be changed. “We can’t let her have even a moment,” he told the others. “One way or another, she has to be stopped.”

Neither Gravedigger nor The Peregrine questioned the fact that Lazarus took charge in situations like this. The Peregrine tended to operate alone and Gravedigger’s group of allies functioned quite differently than the well-oiled operation that was Assistance Unlimited. It simply made sense to defer the role of leader to the man with the most experience. In this case, his commands were sparse because they had plotted this out extensively ahead of time. They hadn’t been positive when they would emerge into the past but they had all been certain that the final battle would pit them against The Mother of Pus, so they had worked out who would do what and when.

Gravedigger started the onslaught by launching several of her mini-crossbow darts. The barbed weapons slammed into Darhoth’s human form and embedded themselves in her shoulder and chest. The monster howled in agony, responding with a powerful eldritch blast that would have killed Charity had she not thrown herself out of the way at the last moment.

The city streets were in turmoil as The Peregrine retrieved a thick climbing cable from the folds of his jacket. During their planning sessions, he’d realized that one of Darhoth’s strengths was her ability to levitate, putting her out of range of many of their attacks. While all three had the capability of responding with guns or crossbow, they needed a way to bring her down into closer range if they truly wanted to disrupt her spell.

As such, The Peregrine had fashioned the equivalent of a cowboy’s lasso. He took aim and let it fly, grinning as the loop fell around her left arm and shoulder. He quickly tied the other end of the cable to a nearby fire hydrant and he was pleased to see that Darhoth was already discomfited by the restraint.

“You’re fools, all of you!” Darhoth bellowed. “This won’t hold me more than a few seconds!” As if to prove her words, she turned her face towards the lasso and her eyes glowed brightly. Twin beams of energy shot forth and struck the cord but it held tight, refusing to be destroyed.

“Sorry, Mother,” The Peregrine said with a smile. “But we took the liberty of enchanting that particular rope.” He seized hold of it and began pulling Darhoth earthward. No matter how she struggled, she found herself unable to free herself of the mystical bond. The Mother of Pus seemed to finally recognize this fact and stopped resisting, instead proceeding to land upon the city street. Her feet touched down just a few feet away from The Peregrine and in anger, she lashed out physically, striking him with a backhanded blow that sent the masked hero flying through the air. He would have struck the side of the hotel with deadly force if Eun hadn’t thrown himself between Max and the wall. As it was, two blows hit Eun: The Peregrine’s body and the sturdy exterior of the building. The young Korean-American groaned in pain before blacking out.

Lazarus, meanwhile, had moved behind Darhoth. Even as Gravedigger approached from the front, waving her curved blade through the air and keeping the monster’s attention centered on her, Lazarus considered his options. He had a pistol holstered under his arm but would a bullet be enough to destroy her? He suspected that even without her physical body, the essence that was the immortal Mother of Pus would survive. Likewise, a blade, even an enchanted one like Max’s Knife of Elohim, would be unlikely to truly succeed.

An idea ran through him, then, one that was fraught with peril but which seemed to be the only option for truly defeating this menace. During his time with The Illuminati, he’d learned many small spells and hexes… not enough to truly make him one of the so-called magical communities but enough that he was fluent in the mystic arts and could, upon occasion, whip something up on the fly. This knowledge had been further improved upon after his battles against the likes of Princess Femi, Doctor Satan and The Three Sisters, all of whom occasionally utilized body-swapping magicks like those used by Darhoth.

“Charity! Cut her head off!” he yelled, while simultaneously throwing himself forward. His strong arms wrapped around Darhoth’s midsection, pinning her limbs against her sides. The smell of her was intense and reminded him of rotting meat, while her strength was so great that it felt like he was wrestling with a bear.

Gravedigger didn’t need to be told twice. Beheading was something of her signature move and while she wondered what Lazarus was up to, she did as he directed. Like Lazarus, she had doubts that this would do anything more than annoy Darhoth but perhaps there was something more to this than she knew.

“You pitiful fools! The plan is already in place! This world is doomed!”

The Peregrine, head still ringing, staggered towards the violent scene. He held The Knife of Elohim in his hand and the blade, which had once been dipped in the blood of Christ, was glowing so brightly that it was almost painful to behold. “I think you’re not paying enough attention to the bigger picture, Mother of Pus. You can expand your consciousness, right? Then do it. Look at your plan.”

Darhoth’s mind expanded outward and she realized what The Peregrine meant. In her confusion, she’d failed to put the finishing touches on her spell, leaving the reawakened monsters around the globe to fight against heroes who had risen up to face them. She saw Thunder Jim Wade and his crew; The Black Terror; The Darkling; a bizarre Heap; The Black Bat; Leonid Kaslov; Doc Daye; Fortune McCall; The Dark Gentleman… on and on the list could have gone. The bravery and perseverance of humanity was embodied in those men and women who refused to back down before the face of evil.