Devil's Sea

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Ragnarok charged past, screaming like a berserker. The line of Valkyries were less than forty feet away, and he made the distance in a few seconds. He swung the ax tied to his arm, and it smashed into the face of the closest Valkyrie, shattering both eyes. As that one screamed, the ones closest veered toward the Viking warrior, who spun about, ax extended.

Dane stood. “Let’s go.”

Amelia Earhart was at his side, her sword ready. “It is time.”

They both began to run forward, the others behind, when they suddenly noticed a bright light to the left. They stopped abruptly as a roar from thousands of throats — human throats — rushed over them. Out of the fog, a line of armored men with red cloaks appeared, spears at the ready. They clashed into the Valkyries with a thunderous cacophony of metal on alien armor.

“Erebus hasn’t erupted,” Nagoya announced. “Ground monitoring station and satellite tracking picked up two nuclear explosions. Ariana was successful.”

There was an explosion of applause in the FLIP control room. Foreman said nothing as the small plug in his ear had relayed reports from the National Security Agency satellite monitoring Antarctica. He knew both bombs had exploded the second they were set off, and he also knew that Ariana was not responding to SATPhone hails.

The cheering was quickly silenced by Nagoya’s next announcement. “The Shadow is shifting power north.”

“How long do we have?” Foreman asked.

“We’ve gained an hour, maybe more. Maybe less.”

An hour, Foreman thought. A very expensive hour, but it could turn out to be very critical if Dane was successful. “Is there any word from the Crab?”

“No, sir.”

“Go for the eyes with your pilum!” Falco’s yell echoes in the fog.

He was next to Kaia, who held the Thera skull in her hands above her head. The light it was projecting pierced the fog, pushing it back. It also seemed to have a negative effect on the Valkyries as the creatures gave way before the numerical and emotional onslaught of the XXV Legion. As importantly, it had allowed the men of the XXV to enter the gate and then the portal without suffering the devastating mental effect that had crippled Liberalius. General Cassius was next to Falco, issuing orders and deploying his men.

Dane and Earhart met Falco and Kaia in the midst of the battlefield as legionnaires pushed past them, rushing the heavily outnumbered Valkyries.

“The skull,” Dane said to Earhart, seeing what Kaia was carrying.

“What about it?”

“It’s what I need to stop the portal.” Dane was looking out over the smooth, black surface of the inner lake. He saw a dorsal fin rapidly approaching. Ahana and Felix Shashenka were behind him.

The Roman said something to Earhart and then she translated. “Without the skull, the legion will be unprotected.

“Without it,” Dane replied, “this is all worthless. Tell him the Shadow’s power we’re trying to stop is going into his time also.”

Falco knew what the strange woman would translate from the man even before she spoke. He turned to Kaia. “None of the legion will return, either, will they?” He looked at the fight that was being waged. General Cassius was in the middle of the line, yelling orders. He felt the pull of the battle.

“No,” the priestess said, “they won’t.”

“And you?” he asked.

“He is correct about the role the skull must play but wrong about who must accomplish the task,” Kaia said. “It is my destiny to be part of the last role it will play.” She ran a hand over the smooth crystal. “This is my ancestor.”

Falco understood what she meant and hefted the Naga staff. He was needed in the fight “Go with them. And then fulfill your destiny as I do mine.”

With that, he sprinted away toward the front lines of the battle between man and creature.

Rachel rose half out of the water, then flipped over on her back, making a splash. Earhart was listening to Kaia and put out a hand as Dane reached to take the skull from her.

”It is her destiny to finish this,” Earhart said. “You must go back to your time.”

“And you?” Dane asked.

“These are my people here,” Earhart said. “Some may survive this battle. I imagine almost everyone I know is dead in your time.”

Dane knew there was no more time for debate. “All right.”

Shashenka stepped forward. “Where are those the Valkyries torture?” he asked Earhart.

She pointed. “That way.”

Without another word, the Russian was sprinting over the course black ground.

Dane felt like it had all unraveled, everyone going in different directions, but a part of him felt comforted, as if far-flung pieces of a puzzle had suddenly come together to produce something sane in this mad place.

As the priestess headed toward the water, he followed. “Wait at the edge,” he yelled over his shoulder to Ahana.

He was next to Kaia as she entered the water. She glanced at him and smiled. Then she dove forward. Rachel was at her side, and Kaia placed her left hand on the dolphin’s dorsal fin, the right clutching the glowing skull. The two raced away.

Dane had to force himself to take his attention from them to searching for the Crab. He could pick up Loomis’s frightened aura not far away, and he swam in that direction.

He reached the Crab, which was just under the surface. Taking a deep breath, Dane dove down. He slid along the side of the craft until he was at the bottom. He found a line of ballast and hit the manual release. The craft bobbed to the surface. Dane climbed on board and opened the hatch.

Kaia felt at peace as the dolphin pulled her through the water. The skull was a warm, solid presence in her right hand, pressed tightly against her chest. She knew this would complete the circle.

Falco had passed through the forefront of the legion and was thoroughly engaged in combat. The Naga staff had already dispatched a half-dozen Valkyries. The creatures were falling back, the legion advancing, General Cassius issuing orders calmly, insuring the men kept in line. They were doing as well as the X, even better, considering the strangeness of the environment and enemy, Falco thought.

Ragnarok was ever farther ahead of Falco, the battle rage consuming him, the ax crushing into white armor, smashing red eyes.

“Come on!” Dane bellowed to Ahana. As the Japanese scientist ran into the water, Dane slid down into the Crab.

Loomis had a pistol in his hand, pointed directly at Dane. “Get out! Get out!” the colonel screamed.

Dane ignored him and headed for the controls. When he heard the click of a firing pin hit a cartridge, he spared a moment to snap punch Loomis in the side of the head, sending the man to the deck unconscious.

“Close the hatch,” Dane ordered as Ahana came in.

“Do we have power?” she asked.

“No.”

“What do we do then?”

“We wait.”

Falco ducked under the Valkyrie’s swipe and with one smooth stroke parted the creature’s head from its body. He shifted, looking for the next target, but they were withdrawing, floating back.

Yells of victory rose out of the throats of the men of the XXV Legion. Falco turned toward General Cassius, and they made eye contact.

“Hold!” Falco yelled. “Hold the line!”

But the men were caught up in the excitement of victory, having faced a dark fear and overcome it, or so they thought. They pressed forward, following the Valkyries over a long, black ridgeline.

Felix Shashenka had to stop in shock when he saw the hundreds of people strapped to tables in front of him, their bodies in different stages of torment. His eyes went right to his brother, the connection strong. Shashenka drew his bayonet as he ran toward the table.

He had seen many terrible things in his time in the Spetsnatz, but nothing had prepared him for what had been done with Pytor. His brother’s skinned lips twisted upward in a smile as he recognized his sibling. The head bobbed in the slightest of nods.

Felix drew the blade across his brother’s throat, feeling the warm blood flow over his arm. It was the last thing he felt as a golden glow suffused him and his skin turned gray and hard.

The crystal skull was growing hotter as Rachel pulled Kaia closer and closer to the power portal. Then Kaia realized the heat wasn’t just coming from the skull in her hand but was also inside her own head.

Suddenly it was there, right in front of her in the water. A cylinder of black with red lines swirling through it coming out of the water and disappearing into the haze overhead. She let go of Rachel, and the dolphin regarded her with one eye, chattered something, and then sped off.

Kaia waited.

Falco was trying to get the men under order, stopping them from their headlong rush after the Valkyries. Cassius was also moving along the line, trying to get control. It took a few minutes, but they finally managed to get the legion drawn in ranks and in place.

Both looked up in shock as a golden glow came over the hill, rolling over the men, transforming them. Falco held the Naga staff up, a futile gesture as the golden wave hit him. He felt unbearable pain, from the marrow of his bones out as his body solidified. His last thought was of his children, even as his heart leapt at the hope of joining Drusilla.

Rows upon rows of legionnaires froze in place, solidified, their bodies encased in solid stone blocks.

The Crab shuddered slightly.

“Rachel,” Dane said simply in response to Ahana’s questioning look. He could feel Kaia, the heat from her in the distance, and knew she was waiting as long as she could.

“Wrangell’s beginning to erupt,” Foreman informed Nagoya.

“The power is increasing from the gate,” Nagoya said. “If it keeps up…” He fell silent.

“Directly ahead,” Dane said, seeing the Devil’s Sea portal they had come through. He knew Kaia wasn’t far away, waiting at the power portal that was also using the Devil’s Sea gate.

Amelia Earhart had been behind the legion with her samurai and other survivors. As the golden flow swept over the Romans, she turned and ran, the others following. She dove into the lake barely in time as the glow went over the water briefly, then pulled back.

When she came back on shore, there was no sign of the Romans. She signaled for the others to follow, and they headed for their caves.

Kaia knew she could wait no longer. She could sense the power level increasing in the portal next to her. She wrapped her ancestor’s skull in both hands and kicked with her feet toward the power portal.

“She’s going in,” Dane said, his hands steady on the controls.

“How close are we?”

“Not close enough,” Dane said.

As she entered the power portal, the skin on Kaia’s head began to glow dark blue. The skin peeled away, and bone appeared. Her eyes were two burning orbs of blue. Her mouth was twisted in an agonized smile.

A bolt of blue shot from her head into the crystal skull in her arms, which magnified it, and then in both directions through the cylinder of power. Up and down the blue suffused into the black, fighting it. The air crackled thunderously, and lightning bolts streaked out of the power portal.

Kaia’s head had completely transformed to crystal, power pulsing out of it into the skull held between rigid fingers and slashing into the darkness. With a final surge of power, the fingers went limp.

But the surge was enough as the cylinder of dark power shattered with a massive explosion and collapsed on itself. A tidal wave roared out from the site.

Go! Leave us. Dane urged Rachel. The dolphin got the message and sped past the craft into the portal.

“Grab something,” Dane advised Ahana.

The tidal wave slammed into the Crab, and both were thrown about as it pitched forward, riding the wave. The nose hit the portal, and then all was still.