Project Maigo(41)

I’m not sure we could kill him, but having seen how Nemesis handled Scrion, there is no doubt she could make a snack of him.

Speaking of which... “Woodstock, we need immediate evac!”

Betty circles around overhead, dropping toward the stone between us and Gordon—and the giant wave, which is now just a half mile and thirty seconds away.

“Jeesum Crow!” Woodstock’s shout punctuates Betty’s sudden maneuver. The chopper pitches back and shoots away. Behind the thunderous rotor chops, I hear a splash, like a vast, wet, sucking noise.

A shadow covers the area.

Then it rains.

I turn my gaze upward and see the strangest looking, low hanging rain cloud ever. My misinterpretation of the shape is quickly undone by three orange circles.

Dammit. It’s another Kaiju.

The monster has leapt out of the fresh-water quarry and is soaring over our heads like some demented version of Free Willy. The creature is smaller than Scrion, seventy-five feet from snout to tail tip, and faster. I can’t see its face or back, but it’s got four long, spike covered limbs jutting from its sides, like a lizard. And its long tail is flattened vertically at the end, perfect for swimming. This thing isn’t here to fight, it’s Gordon’s getaway vehicle.

The monster pays us no attention as it lands between us and Gordon. It simply runs forward on its wide-spread legs and opens its triangle-shaped jaws. It scoops Gordon inside, almost delicately, and then the thing is in motion again. It dives into the ocean, and with two hard swipes of its tail, it disappears into the water.

The mountain that is Nemesis quickly alters course, giving chase, but it’s clear the larger Kaiju will never catch the sleeker model now racing out to sea.

Propelled faster by Nemesis’s sudden turn, the tidal wave races toward the shore.

“Let’s go!” Collins shouts. Her voice pulls me out of spectator mode. Woodstock is already landing again. Collins hefts Endo over her shoulder and runs for Betty. Alessi is right behind her. And me...I’m hobbling after them like the Hunchback of Notre Dame with a leg cramp.

Collins throws open the side door and tosses Endo onto the floor. Alessi doesn’t complain about the rough treatment. She just dives inside.

Looking through the open door and the window on the opposite side, I see nothing but water, racing up the shore.

My lungs feel like they’re not working. I can’t catch a breath, drowning in the open air. I know something is really wrong when my vision starts to fade. But I don’t stop. I can’t stop.

Collins reaches for me. “C’mon!”

I jump.

And collide with the outside edge of the chopper’s floor. Pain shoots through my body, so intense that I can’t feel anything save for the sick twisting sensation in my gut. Darkness blocks my sight. I try to fight it, but in the end, I decide I might not like to be awake when I drown, so I let myself slide into oblivion.





21



She felt...chaos.

Everywhere.

Her mind was torn. Her body burned with energy, but she was pulled in separate directions. Even as her holy rage compelled her to lash out and silence the corrupt voices in the world—everyone in the world—that still small voice that was also her, whispered for her to stop. To have mercy. To protect. There was a time when the voices sang in unison, for blood and retribution, but now, they were at odds.

And yet, they were each other. The same.

Nemesis and Maigo.

Monster and girl.

Every situation she encountered and each set of decisions, while tearing the pair apart, unified them in the end, as confusion became action, and action felt...good.

She knew the dark man. Felt her heart in him, as she had once before. But while she had changed, he had not. His thirst for vengeance, for destruction, grew. While those feelings were still a part of her, and were a thirst she would quench, she had found balance. She sensed the dark man’s desperate longing and ignored it. Their hearts, once the same, were no longer aligned.

But there was another. She sensed his heart only vaguely, but she knew it well. She felt it the day retribution had been brought upon the man who... As powerful as she felt, the memories—the pain and loss of that day—were still too disturbing to think about. She had been helpless then.

He understood that.

He...sympathized with her pain.

And he had helped deliver her from it.

While the world around her cried out for punishment, his weakness drew her attention. Because the dark man still lived. And his dark heart wanted to consume the other. The...light man.

So the world and its evil would wait until the dark man tasted vengeance for his crimes against the light. The most recent of which nearly claimed his life. He was alive, she knew. Though she could sense the billions of souls on the planet, his stood out as a beacon and a reminder of who she had been.