Project Maigo(84)

She flinches back, lifting her arm and dragging Scylla through the Capitol Building’s remains. Scylla holds on, latched in place, while Nemesis shakes her arm back and forth, reacting to the pain without thought.

The teeth sink deeper. Nemesis’s roar becomes high-pitched. Something stirs within me. All of my fear and trepidation is forgotten. I stand and shake my fist at Nemesis. “Fight back!”

Endo glances at me. He doesn’t say anything, but I can see he’s pleased by my outburst.

I grip the side wall around the top of the White House roof as Scylla begins shaking its head, thrashing back and forth. Red blood flows from Nemesis’s arm, dripping on the Capitol ruins.

Slowly, Nemesis lifts her arm, higher and higher until Scylla is lifted off the ground. The display of strength is impressive to say the least, but Scylla hardly notices. It just clings to the arm like a dog to a dangling rope, wiggling back and forth. I think it might even be growling. When Nemesis levels a brown-eyed stare at Scylla, the Kaiju finally stops moving.

There’s a shift that takes place, and it has nothing to do with physical violence—yet. Scylla’s body language changes slightly, like it knows it’s severely fucked, but can’t back out.

A distant roar, deep and powerful, announces the approach of Karkinos. Typhon isn’t far behind. I can see them just over the horizon, rising up over the city, just a few miles off, but approaching quickly. There isn’t a lot of time before this becomes a three-on-one fight, and while Scylla is still fifty feet shorter than Nemesis, the other two look to be her match.

A sneer forms on the sides of Nemesis’s mouth, revealing sharp teeth. She’s moving past the pain and into the mindset in which she feels most at home: rage.

Nemesis unleashes a roar the likes of which I’ve never heard out of her, drool spraying from her mouth. She lifts Scylla higher and then yanks her arm down. Scylla’s body swings out and then drops. As the Kaiju’s giant body swings back toward Nemesis, she kicks out with one of her massive feet. Scylla’s body folds around the foot as it drives into the monster’s gut and forces the air from its lungs in a gargling scream. The impact forces Scylla’s jaws open. The teeth slip free with geysers of blood. And then Scylla is airborne, punted over the ruins of the Capitol.

The hammer-headed Kaiju lands across buildings, which absorb its fall like a memory foam cushion, except that when the giant stands and shakes off the attack, the buildings remain squashed.

Ignoring the approaching Kaiju, Nemesis leans forward and roars again, but she doesn’t move. She’s instigating her adversary. Scylla takes the bait, thundering toward Nemesis, mouth agape.

When Scylla reaches the point of no return, Nemesis spins around, dragging her tail through a line of cars that are sent spiraling through the air. When her back is to Scylla, she pulls the tail around behind her, whipping it up and out, catching Scylla beneath its outstretched arms. One of the nasty spikes on the end of Nemesis’s tail stabs into the monster’s side, and the force of the blow knocks Scylla up and over, flipping the Kaiju head-over-heels. It seems impossible, that something so large could spin through the air like that, but there it is; a big-ass Kaiju, cartwheeling like Mary Lou Retton.

Scylla slams through the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial, crushing both horse and rider, before landing in the Capitol Reflecting Pool with a mighty splash. The impact rolls beneath the White House like an earthquake. Scylla thrashes in the water, draining the large pool. Its groans are pitiful. The monster attempts to roll and sit up, but fails. Then it falls back with a grunt, brown blood flowing from its side. Scylla is down, but not out. Its eyes remain open, its chest heaving with each breath. Mostly it looks confused.

It’s never felt pain before, I think.

And now that it has, it’s stunned. Bewildered. But definitely not mortally wounded. Not if it’s related to Nemesis. It won’t be long before Scylla’s back on its feet. And with the arrival of Karkinos and Typhon, that would be a bad thing.

Nemesis is going to need some help.

I lower the binoculars and take out my phone, dialing Woodstock.

“We’re here.” It’s Alessi.

“Why didn’t Woodstock answer?” I ask.

“He’s flying,” comes the curt answer.

“Why didn’t Collins—”

“She was shot,” Alessi says.

In the fraction of a second before she speaks again, I find myself feeling lightheaded. Panic races through my body, erasing the effects of the adrenaline that’s been coursing through my veins for the past twenty minutes. I feel my legs grow weak. I feel short of breath. My chest hurts.