Leviathan(100)

“I'm okay,” Connor said gently, nodding.

She said nothing.

“I'm okay,” he repeated, smiling faintly. “It was close.”

A moment, and she asked, “Did you kill it?”

He shook his head, and they held each other a long time. Connor could hear Barley giving Chesterton a cold play-by-play while Thor knelt on the bridge, somber, staring back.

“We cannot outrun it,” the Norseman said, and they turned to him. “But this is a good place to make a stand.” He paused a long time. “Connor, do you think that you can rig up an electrical blast that will knock the Dragon into the gorge?”

Connor studied the situation. “If I can get some power from the breaker, then I can wire the walkway.”

“That won't work,” Frank offered. “That's what you did in the Matrix. It's going to be looking for that.”

A pause, and Connor slowly nodded his head. “All right.

Well, I think I can set something else up. But I'll need to get to work. I don't know how much time we've got.”

“Good,” Thor said, standing. “Then the gorge might do the work for us. If we can knock it from the bridge, the fall might kill it.”

From the depths of Tungsten Passage a fiendish, victorious roar trembled the walls, crawling from the stones to congeal beneath their feet. It was the sound of unnatural pleasure, bestial cruelty.

Angrily Chesterton shook his head. “I'm really, really getting tired of that thing. I think we need to put it in the ground and drive a stake through its heart.”

Thor stared darkly at the bridge.

“Here, it can die,” he growled.

Frank gazed numbly at him. “It's not going to die, Thor. Leviathan is never going to die. Nothing on Earth can kill it.”

Frowning, Thor gazed down on the scientist.

“Only God is more than man,” he rumbled.

Frank stared a moment, as if the thought shocked him. “Yeah ...” he said finally. “I know what you're thinking, Thor. But Leviathan is like God. There's never been anything like it. And there never will be. Leviathan was never meant to exist.”

“Only God is more than man,” Thor said coldly, turning his head to stare at the bridge again. “If man can die, then the Dragon can die as well.”

Dr. Hoffman felt cold stone at his hands and turned toward the awesome, eternal dark surrounding him. Red lights gleamed in the distance, haunting and threatening. He knew that he was as lost as he would ever be. Screams echoed hideously through nearby tunnels, silence following. And Hoffman knew that it was coming, yes, coming. Just as surely as it had always been coming since he was a child, waiting in the dark and listening. Imagining it beside him.

Waiting.

Waiting these long, long years.

Dr. Hoffman bent his head as he heard the claws clicking, scales sliding on stone. He looked up to see the darkness thickening, there, there. And he gathered his heart, his life, nodding his head as wispy white hairs fell over his face.

“So,” he whispered, “you have come.”

It made no sound, poised so close.

Dr. Hoffman felt the warmth, knew the fangs were distended, slavering. He nodded his old head, remembering all that he had done. But he would do no more, no. Would give it no more. And he felt his fear fading at the thought.

His heart was all that he owned, and all he had ever owned; his life, his dignity. “No,” he said, gazing up at the beast. “You will frighten me no more. All these years I have feared you. But now I take your victory from you: I do not fear you.”

Death filled the dark.

He closed his eyes.

* * *



Thor growled in pain, massaging his shoulder.

It was sore and stiff from his fall, but no bones were broken. Teeth clenched against the effort, he tried to loosen the swollen tendons. As Connor finished rigging Bridgestone with an electrical current, he gazed about to see how effortlessly Leviathan had destroyed the vault leading to the bridge. There was nothing but shattered steel, slashed titanium.

An ancient passage recorded in the book of Job came to Thor's mind, a dark and forbidding passage: Behold Leviathan ... The greatest of all My creations ... On Earth, it has no equal ... A creature without fear ...

Thor frowned, his gaze descending dark and somber and sad. He believed in his heart that the words were true, and then he remembered something more, something which strangely lifted his heart: And yet, can you make Leviathan beg for mercy as the Lord Almighty can? Can you draw Leviathan from the waters, as the Lord Almighty can, to play with him as a child plays with a bird? ... Yes! Behold Leviathan and know the strength of the Lord ... Know that all that is under heaven is Mine …

Thor felt his head reflexively bend in prayer as his hand closed on the haft of the battle-ax. His hoarse voice was a whisper so that none surrounding him could hear his fear.