Leviathan (42 page)

Grimacing, Connor knew that he would need a miracle to bring that lightning bolt of electrical power across from one coil to connect to the other, just as Leviathan moved between them. But Connor knew that, if it came to it
, he had to make it happen.

It would be their last chance.

But the distance was extreme, he knew, and he really had no idea how he would manage it. He had wanted to move the endings closer but had decided he couldn’t risk the beast sensing the trap.

It learns, Frank had said over and over.

It learns.

It won
’t fall for the same trick twice.

Connor released a tight breath, blowing sweat from his lips. He had also remembered the warning as he set his other traps, knowing that each one had to be different. And he had almost exhausted his cunning, using electrical power in ways that even he had never imagined.
But the Norwegian power line was both the best and the worst because it held by far the greatest measure of power. And yet it would be the most difficult trap to close.

A sense of doom overcame him, and Connor bowed his head.

Yeah, he’d need a miracle to make it work. “I need a miracle, buddy,” he whispered, shaking his head, his mind reaching out to Thor’s gigantic, comforting presence. “And you were the one who believed in miracles …”

Alone in the gloom, Connor pondered how often Thor had spoken of good and evil and fate and life and how every man
’s destiny held the Dragon, an evil that he would meet in the field with only his courage and faith and the fire of his heart to …

A breath caught in Connor
’s chest.

His gaze wandered down,
unfocused, remembering …

Fire
?

An idea, hard and sudd
en, descended over him. And fumbling in frantic uncertainty, Connor quickly broke open the M-79 grenade launcher. He tore out the phosphorous grenade and stared at the projectile a long time, trying to recall the oxidation level of phosphorus, deciding whether the chemical could carry a current. He closed his eyes as he remembered what Barley had said, understanding now why it had struck him so profoundly …
That phosphorous grenade is liquid fire, Connor … Be careful with it … It is pure, liquid fire
…

Teeth gleaming in a savage smile, Connor glared at the grenade, raising it before his gaze. His fist closed tight and bloodless around the polished gray cylinder. And tighter.

He needed a miracle. And he was given fire.

Pure liquid fire.

Frowning, Connor nodded.

Yeah. That
’d do just fine.

* * *

Connor saw the dark outline of the beast.

It had come.

“It’s about time,” Connor whispered, rising to his feet to stand fully in the middle of the corridor. Defiantly he raised the M-79, resting the stock on his hip to wait in plain sight.

One second later Leviathan was before him, standing boldly at the entrance of the corridor a quarter mile away. It sighted him almost instantly, unhinging its jaws. And even at a distance, Connor could see that the Dragon was not what it had been.

Vaporous clouds of steam floated from sections of its long neck and body where the proud armor scales were ripped and completely torn away from its gigantic body. There were even wide sections of its neck still raw and ravaged, oozing black blood. And there was a wide, unhealed black cleft between its eyes.

Connor smiled.

Yeah, it was clear.

Leviathan wasn
’t healing up. At least, not like before. It had recovered enough to launch a last attack. But if it was struck down again it would be down forever. It had never managed to overcome the grievous wounds sustained in the battle with Thor.

They had starved it and wounded it and taken it down over and over and now it was exhausted
– starving and dying. And Connor knew he was going to help it along.

He wondered if the Dragon had regenerated its flame-throwing abilities
and then it sent a blazing blast of flame down the corridor, igniting all that could be ignited.

In a white holocaust the flames stopped less than a hundred feet away and Connor realized that the maximum range of the blast was about three hundred feet. He would have leaped aside if he had had the chance
, but it happened too quickly, so he used the opportunity for scorn. He shouted, hoping it would realize his intent.

“
Come on!” Then Connor added, more quietly. “Let’s see how much of you survived Thor.”

With a cautious step the beast advanced, crouching low to clear the top of the tunnel. Connor reflexively glanced at the bare wires hanging from the ceiling, forty feet in front of it. With two gigantic strides Leviathan had reached the junction. Green eyes narrowing, it raised its head, studying the wires. Then it lowered itself even more to clear the copper strands, stepping toward a section of walkway wired with 10,000 volts.

Just enough to make it mad.

Connor eased back, moving for the corner because it was closing on three hundred feet. He knew that he had to exhaust what flame remained before the Dragon reached the power plant.

So he took the Beretta semiautomatic pistol from the small of his back and raised it with a cold aim toward the beast. At this distance it was a useless weapon, he knew, but Connor wasn’t trying to injure it – just enrage it.

He fired
a full clip, aiming high.

Leviathan winced as the bullets struck and Connor fired the full fifteen rounds. But the beast held its ground, unmoving and unprovoked. The Beretta was smoking in Connor
’s hand as he lowered it slowly to his side.

Leviathan glared, jaws
separating.

Connor stared back, grim.

“One more step,” he whispered. “Come on … Take it …”

Leviathan snarled.

It took it.

* * *

Chapter 39

Connor dove to the side as the clawed foot struck the walkway and the corridor exploded, shards of steel cascading from the tunnel to tear chunks of calcite from the walls, floor.

Instantly Connor was on his feet, into it now, sweating,
something within him fired by the impact. He held the M-79 close as he ducked his head around the corner to see

Roaring fangs ...

With a shout Connor fired point-blank, his finger closing on the trigger without his will and the grenade went into the face of the beast, striking in a concussive blast that rocketed fire from the tunnel like a volcanic eruption. Connor screamed and twisted away to hit the ground hard, and then he was on his feet again, staggering and without thought breaking open the M-79 to tear out the spent grenade canister.

Leviathan shrieked over him and Connor spun to see that it was too close. Shouting, Connor dropped to one knee and saw the beast crawling beneath the upraised vault. It was fully engulfed in white, spiraling phosphorous flames, a cloud of fire.

Then Connor saw the vault cable and knew it was his only chance. Instantly he ripped out the pistol at his back to hold a dead-aim at the steel cord and then he was pulling the trigger as fast as he could move. Howling lead fragments and splintered steel lanced the air and him but Connor barely felt it and suddenly the steel cord snapped.

With a thunderous descent the vault slammed on Leviathan's
chest, crushing it to the ground. Connor heard himself howling, leaping to the side as he wildly ejected the pistol's clip and slammed in another. With a curse he dropped the pistol in the bag and shoved a grenade into the M-79, snapping it shut instantly.

“
Come on!” he screamed. “Show me what you can take!”

Leviathan shrieked and twisted, squirming to its back. Its claws lashed out to strike the titanium, and it bellowed, pushing down with the forelegs to crawl from beneath the crushing weight. Connor estimated that he had less than three minutes and then he was running, his mind racing ahead of him.

Ten seconds, twenty ...

A reptilian roar thundered like a storm-blast along the walls, and Connor knew the beast was quickly scrambling free. Surging with fear, Connor slung the M-79 across his back and ran with all his strength, ignoring torn muscles and infinite, infinite pain that was coming hard now, despite the drugs.

Connor made two hundred yards in thirty seconds, saw the fifty-yard section of flooded tunnel looming up before him glistening with red light and he dove, smoothly slicing the water. When he surfaced he was halfway across, rising to a bestial roar. Then he heard a titanic crash and knew Leviathan had followed him into the water, fearless now, closing.

In six strong strokes Connor gained the edge of the flooded section to erupt over the edge, rolling clear. He scrambled frantically to the side and wildly tore the high-voltage wire from place, hurling the bare copper into the water. Then he twisted back wildly as a titanic skeletal image was lit above him—500,000 spiraling volts of electricity burning itself upward through the Dragon.

“Ahh ...”

Connor gasped, falling back.

In a white firestorm Leviathan was splayed almost to the ceiling of the passage, bones visible as its skin seemed to glow translucent.

Connor knew that in another second the beast would have had him. But he had beaten it, by a second. And for the moment, the Dragon surged with pure power, glowing, unable to escape the supercharged water. Howling, shrieking, it twisted against the electrical tendrils that blasted upward through its colossal, demonic form.

“Die!” Connor screamed. “Die! Die! Die!”

But he
knew
that it wouldn't die – not yet. Just as he knew that the longer it fought the current, the hotter the spiraling circuit would overheat its already superheated blood until it was boiling.

Leviathan glared down and Connor leaped to the side as a wild and uncontrolled blast descended, igniting the stone where he had stood. The blaze streamed upward across the ceiling in a holocaust that cascaded back down the wall. Only at the last moment did Connor see the streak descend toward the wire and he finally rolled wide, shouting.

Fire struck fire, the blast hurling Connor fifty feet back into the tunnel. He crashed against something unrelenting to collapse to the ground, rolling, breathless.

Stunned, rising by will alone, Connor spun to glare, shaken and shocked and numb beyond all he had ever known, to see Leviathan slashing, churning in the water. It was trying to regain control of its nervous system. Then Connor saw the burned wiring, and he realized that the beast had broken the current.

Grimacing, Connor turned and ran. Something told him he was limping, that his leg was ravaged by some impact he couldn't understand but he didn't care. Now he was carried beyond every measure of pain by his anger, rage, and love. He fell through the door of a manually sealed section of Brubaker with a groan, taking a deep breath and aiming the pistol. He fired continuously at the cable until it broke, ignoring the lead splinters.

The vault thundered shut.

Light-headed and reeling, Connor moved quickly down the hundred-yard stretch, trying not to breathe at all. The vault before him seemed incredibly far, and then he heard the terrific attack against the portal behind him, knew the Dragon was closing with horrific speed.

It was recovering more quickly with each trauma but Connor knew it was
dying-had-to-be-dying
! It was exhausting the last of its enzyme banks – all that remained of its strength.

Connor passed the rows of oxygen tanks that he had hauled to the stretch of passageway and then he reached the opposing
vault, quickly crawling beneath. Once he was on the far side he took a breath but the air was too poisoned even there for strength. Connor lay still for a moment, drawing ragged breaths and then he heard a spectacular collision and glared back to witness Leviathan lying as dead atop the fallen vault.

Oxygen pouring beneath the portal was stifling
and thin.

The Dragon rose slowly. Stunned. Fatigued.

“Come on!” Connor bellowed. “Do it! Use your fire!”

Leviathan staggered to its feet. Its fangs hung distended, but not to terrorize. Connor thought it was having trouble drawing breath.

Laughing, Connor roared a primal challenge with a fury that joined the two of them, the war, the stand. Then with a dramatic scream Connor raised the M-79 as if he were about to fire and the Dragon reacted, lowered its scarred head. Its neck muscles tightened.

“
HIT ME!” Connor screamed. “COME ON! HIT ME!”

Connor leaped desperatel
y aside as the Dragon's fire extended.

Through pure oxygen.

Connor heard screaming and realized he was ...

ON FIRE!

He roared and rolled wildly through the mud and water-soaked calcite, beating violently and shoving his arm and leg across mud, smearing mud to put out the flames until he found himself smoldering and blackened ...

Burned and dying
... like the Dragon.

“
Yeah,” Connor whispered, rising to his knees and forehead. “We'll both die ... Both of us ...”

Connor made it to his feet, snarling like an animal to endure the pain. He had never even heard the titanic blast created when the Dragon hurled flame through the oxygen
but he had felt the erupting roar that tore a white path through the space beneath the vault.

Staggering, Connor saw that the vault still stood. It had
somehow endured the terrific force of the oxygen. And a moment later Connor wondered if the beast wasn't dead before he felt or sensed the shadow approaching and then a bat-like foreleg exploded through the stone at the vault to—

Connor shouted as the claws struck him across the chest, blasting a red path through flesh and rib to turn him away with the vicious velocity of the impact. Then Connor hit the ground hard, feeling dirt on his face, his eyes black with dust.

Blood everywhere.

Connor moaned, rolled, trying to gain his feet but he knew that he was hurt this time, something
permanently taken from him. He pressed a dark red hand across his chest as he staggered up, weak and numb.

With a vengeful scream the Dragon jerked its foreleg through the gaping hole. A second later the foreleg was slammed through the top of the vault, ravaging the brackets, preparing to defeat the barrier. Connor watched for a stunned second before he turned and ran, weary, weary now and losing whatever strength had been fired within him as he heard himself calling out to someone, his son his son and he was making promises, won't let you down, boy, I'll never let you down, not ever
...

Connor moaned and fell from fatigue. Blood beneath him, over him. He groaned and looked up to
see ...

Jordan in front of him
…

Hand raised to the sky
...

I'll always be with
you
...

“
Jordan,” Connor whispered, “I won't let you down boy. I won't ... I won't let you down...”

A demonic roar thundered up the tunnel.

“Come on!” Connor cried out. “Come-on-don't-let-this-thing-beat-you-don't-let-it-BEAT YOU!”

Connor roared in blinding pain as he reached the half-ton truck, still parked at the entrance of the power plant. He glared wildly as he climbed into the cab to see the generator mounted on the back and still running. He slammed it into gear and gunned it and then the truck was roaring down the passage on a collision course with the beast. The grill lashed to the front was charged
with 25,000 volts. Twenty gallons of gasoline were roped to the hood.

Defiant, Connor screamed as the Dragon charged and some suicidal will almost held him in the cab until the last second but then something primal because that was all there was drove him out and Connor found himself sprawling across the rocks and dust with pain in his face and eyes as a wild and hoarse noise roared away from him ...

Broken ...

Bloody,
dying ...

Connor cried out, staggering to his feet, running.

The Dragon collided with the truck and Connor whirled against his will to see the electric bolts thrown from the grill racing over the beast and then the truck exploded in a mushrooming, smothering firestorm that became white air.

Connor didn't know what he was doing in the holocaust until he saw the power plant entrance
approaching ...

Running!

I'm still running!

“
Thank God,” he moaned. “Thank you ... Thank you, God ...”

Leviathan roared and Connor heard a crashing, rending attack, somehow realizing that
the unstoppable beast was ravaging the truck, relentlessly tearing its hell-born path up the passageway.

Always, always coming had always been coming.

At the thought Connor met something else inside himself, a rage to defy, to defy even to death and he drove himself forward on wooden legs. He was dazed and numb and dying as he came down on each stumbling stride, pushing himself mercilessly toward the entrance of the power plant.

And his last hope.

* * *