Leviathan(140)

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.

* * *





Chapter 40



Connor staggered blindly into the power plant, finally gaining the door in gore and pain and rage, his shirt burned from his body and his body black with wounds.

“Get cover!” he screamed, tearing the M-79 from his back. “Barley! Get ready! It's coooooming!”

High on the dais Connor heard a terrified scream and glanced up to see Beth and Jordan. And somehow the image brought back to life what had been destroyed by his pain and wounds and fear. Connor's face tightened, eyes tearing. He spun to glare down the tunnel, seeing in the distance the demonic beast.

Leviathan focused on him, growling.

Connor snarled, lowering his head. Then he glanced up to see the severed sections of the Norwegian power line, poised above his own head. The bare copper coils, each one as thick as his leg, were bright with a billion volts of power. He focused again on the beast.

“Come on! Come on let's finish this!”

Leviathan leaped violently forward, landing well into the tunnel and charging. Connor screamed at Barley.

“Three seconds!”

“Bring it on!” Barley shouted, raising the LAW. Connor didn't turn back but he knew the beast was coming, coming, always coming.

He staggered forward, falling ...

A black roar rushed over him, hot and hating.

Ablaze beyond all feeling Connor instinctively spun to see a black monstrosity hurtling up the tunnel, all caution forgotten and he fired the grenade launcher from the hip, turning into the thrust with a yell.

Exploding in a mushrooming white blast the grenade hit high, phosphorus blazing off the ceiling of the corridor to hit the beast in a firestorm. A twin concussion, something Connor didn't understand and didn't try to understand rocked the entire cavern and he fell back, yelling incoherently at the echoing shock wave that thundered across them, the entire cavern alive with the trauma of the conflict.